Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Drugs (Survey)

Mr. Pardoe: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the cost of the survey into drug-taking carried out for his Department by Market Advertising and Products Study Limited; and if he will publish the report.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Richard Sharples): Market Advertising and Product Studies Ltd. carried out under contract part of a survey which the Home Office commissioned from the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys. The total cost of the survey was £26,767.
As regards the second part of the Question, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to a Question by the hon. Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. Clinton Davis) on 20th January.—[Vol. 829, c. 214.]

Mr. Pardoe: I am grateful to the Minister for that answer, but it does not mean that the report is to be published. Does he not regard that as rather a lot of money to spend on something that presumably will only be bedside reading for the Home Secretary? Can he confirm that the report bears out many of the recommendations of the Wootton Report, which was scandalously rejected by his predecessor, and in particular that it shows that cannabis smoking is far more widespread than was popularly appreciated and that there is no link between cannabis and the hard drugs? Does he realise that the police are placed in the impossible position of

having to enforce a law that the public do not accept?

Mr. Sharples: No, Sir. I should not like to draw the firm conclusions that the hon. Gentleman does from the draft, which requires a considerable amount of further evaluation. The survey, which was commissioned in 1967, consists of a large amount of information that still needs to be evaluated.

Mr. Fowler: While I reject all that the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) said about cannabis, may I ask whether my hon. Friend has noticed the disturbing reports that there is an increasing use of Chinese heroin in this country? Does not he agree that, if those reports are true, the position is extremely serious as it implies a professionally-organised trade in the drug? Will he, therefore, ask for an immediate report from the Metropolitan Police on the matter?

Mr. Sharples: Yes, Sir. Chinese heroin is a danger of which the Metropolitan Police are well aware. We are in close touch with them about this.

Mr. Wellbeloved: Will the Minister bear in mind that the House will expect the Government to show the same courage as their predecessors in refusing to legalise the taking of cannabis resin?

Mr. Sharples: Yes, Sir. There is no question of any change of policy.

Sir G. Nabarro: Does my hon. Friend realise that the overwhelming majority of rational and reasonable opinion in this country, including the unanimous opinion of the medical profession, is sternly opposed to legalising Indian hemp?

Mr. Pardoe: The hon. Gentleman should see what is published in the report.

Mr. Sharples: I think that I would agree with my hon. Friend.

Mr. John Fraser: Will the Minister confirm that in due course the report will be published, after the evaluation he has spoken about has been made?

Mr. Sharples: First, I should like to congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his first appearance on the Front Bench. I should not like to give the firm assurance for which the hon. Gentleman asks. It is a draft report and needs a considerable


amount of further evaluation. When it is presented to Ministers, we shall be able to consider whether or not it should be published.

Wandsworth Prison (Staff Accommodation)

Mr. Thomas Cox: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what financial expenditure he is proposing on the accommodation at Wandsworth Prison for bachelor prison officers.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Mark Carlisle): Two schemes to provide improved accommodation are under consideration, involving a toal cost of about £15,00.

Mr. Cox: I welcome that reply, but I am sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman is aware of the two issues involved. There is, first, the urgent need to improve the deplorable conditions in which unmarried officers are now living at Wandsworth Prison. Secondly, there is the need to ensure that there is adequate finance for additional accommodation for the extra officers that it is hoped will be appointed to the prison in the very near future. Those are two very important matters to the officers at the prison.

Mr. Carlisle: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I am fully aware of the need for more bachelor accommodation for the prison staff. I recently visited the prison and that need was forcibly brought home to me by both the governor and the representatives of the Prison Officers Association.

Arson and Loss Claims

Mr. Driberg: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, in view of the increase in the number of fires in London caused by arson, he will initiate special action to combat arson and, in this connection, to investigate the activities of certain public loss assessors and insurance loss adjusters.

Mr. Sharples: It is for the chief officer of police concerned to take such action as he considers appropriate. I am sure that any suspected arson or fraudulent fire loss claim is carefully investigated.

Mr. Driberg: Will the Minister bear in mind that detailed factual reports on

a number of these incidents were submitted to Scotland Yard some years ago and no action was taken? Could he at least find out why that is so, and ask the Yard particularly to investigate the activities of Mr. Leopold Harris and his family firm of L. S. Harris, who are up to their old trick of submitting fraudulent claims, often in connection with fires in which innocent people have been burnt to death?

Mr. Sharples: It is my understanding that details of certain cases have been sent to the Commissioner of Police. It is for the Commissioner of Police to decide what action shall be taken.

Mr. Driberg: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Magistrates' Courts

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what consultations he has had regarding the future administration of magistrates' courts; and if he will make a statement.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Reginald Maudling): Last June the Home Office issued to the organisations principally concerned a memorandum, prepared jointly with the Lord Chancellor's office, setting out the arguments for and against the two main alternatives for the future organisation of magistrates' courts. Replies to this memorandum are now being considered, but I am not yet ready to make a statement.

Mr. Mitchell: Is the Home Secretary aware that large numbers of magistrates' benches, particularly in the big cities, would like to see a national magistrates' service as part of the general court system, with administration taken away from local authorities?

Mr. Maudling: I am aware that there are many people in favour of that alternative and, equally, many important people with an interest in this matter who feel the other way. This matter is under careful consideration.

Mr. Jeffrey Archer: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that court overcrowding is often caused by lay magistrates, and will he give serious consideration to the appointment of more stipendiary magistrates?

Mr. Maudling: That is a wide question on which I will not hazard a snap reply.

Mr. John Fraser: As the organisation of magistrates' courts is bound to be considered during the passage of the Local Government Bill, will the Secretary of State make a statement on this subject before the Bill completes Committee stage?

Mr. Maudling: Yes, certainly, we shall have to do that.

Metropolitan Police (Disclosure of Information)

Mr. Whitehead: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is satisfied with the procedures whereby information is conveyed to the Press by the Metropolitan Police relating to persons voluntarily visiting police stations and against whom no charge has been made; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Maudling: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply my hon. Friend gave to Questions from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Havers) and the hon. Member for Hackney Central (Mr. Clinton Davis) on 22nd December.—[Vol. 828, c. 381.]

Mr. Whitehead: I am grateful for that reply, but will the Minister impress upon the Metropolitan Police the serious view taken in the House when an hon. Member is reported as having been breathalysed because of his condition—I think that was the phrasing—and when that information appears to emanate from or be corroborated by the police? Will he impress upon the Metropolitan Police that tests of breath and blood are taken to determine the condition, and not the cause of the condition, of someone reporting to a police station and that in such cases serious harm is done by innuendo which is never redressed by the subsequent publication of negative findings?

Mr. Maudling: I have not had a full report on the case, and I do not think one would want to discuss it anyway. I have looked carefully at the procedures followed by the police and I think that they are the right ones.

Mr. Evelyn King: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, not only in London but in the counties, there is a growing practice of the police relating to the Press

information received in an official capacity? Not infrequently, that information has no relation to the prevention of crime. Does not my right hon. Friend agree that it is not the function of the police to put out gossip?

Mr. Maudling: I should be grateful if hon. Members would bring any examples of that to my attention.

Mr. Ashton: Does not the Minister agree that one of the disturbing aspects in this case is that only two weeks earlier the right hon. Member involved had asked for an investigation into police affairs in his constituency? When such an incident as this occurs two weeks later, are not rather disturbing inferences drawn?

Mr. Maudling: I do not think that anyone, least of all the right hon. Member concerned, would make such an imputation.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: There is concern, as I know from correspondence about the relationship between the police and the Press. As the Police Journal recently commented, while there was speedy contact with the Press in the first part of the case there was dilatoriness when it came to clearing it up. Should there not be a set procedure?

Mr. Maudling: This case has been investigated in meticulous detail by the Commissioner of Police at my request. I am in the process of communicating with the right hon. Member concerned and I think this is the right procedure to follow.

Mr. Clinton Davis: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will cause an inquiry to be made into the circumstances in which the Metropolitan Police made public the findings of a breathalyser test against a named person at Tottenham Court Road Police Station on 14th December, 1971, at a time when no proceedings had been initiated, particulars of which case have been sent to him by the hon. Member for Hackney, Central.

Mr. Maudling: The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis has held an inquiry. The investigating officer found no evidence that the result of a test was initially made public by the police.

Mr. Clinton Davis: That is a profoundly unsatisfactory reply. If a meticulous inquiry has been carried out, why is the House uninformed as to the details, as is the public at large? Who divulged the name of my right hon. Friend to the Press or whoever else it was? To whom was it divulged? Is it not a fact that the police refused to make an apology to my right hon. Friend even when they had publicised his name and it became clear that no prosecution could possibly follow? Does this not call for a public inquiry?

Mr. Maudling: No, Sir. I do not agree with that at all. The inquiry, made at my request by the Commissioner, was the result of a letter to me from the right hon. Member concerned. It is right and courteous for me to do what I am doing—namely, first writing to give him all the details.

Mr. Clinton Davis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I propose to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

Suspended Sentences and Probation

Mr. Spearing: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the number of persons placed on suspended sentence and probation, respectively, over the last comparable period.

Mr. Carlisle: In 1970 in England and Wales 33,909 persons aged 17 and over were given a suspended sentence of imprisonment and 30,030 were placed on probation.

Mr. Spearing: I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for those figures, but does he not agree that the supervision of persons who have been given suspended sentences savours of the custodial whereas the probation officer's rôle is more fraternal? In looking to any extension of either system is it not important to see that one function does not interfere with the other?

Mr. Carlisle: At the moment there is no way by which a supervision order can be attached to a suspended sentence, which is merely a sentence of imprisonment suspended. In Committee on the Criminal Justice Bill we have been debating the proposal to allow for a suspended sentence supervision order.

Traffic Diversions (London)

Mr. Strauss: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will instruct the Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police not to impose large-scale street closures and traffic diversions on weekdays.

Mr. Sharples: My right hon. Friend has no authority to do so.

Mr. Strauss: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that when Royal foreign visitors arrive in London and drive to Buckingham Palace there is widespread congestion of traffic over a large area of central London because of the diversion of traffic by the Commissioner of Police? This causes intolerable delay to tens of thousands of people and widespread complaint which is fully justified. Will the hon. Gentleman consider suggesting to the appropriate authorities that future invitations should be accompanied by a request for arrival to take place on Saturday so that the minimum inconvenience to the public is caused? He will recall that the Lord Mayor's Show always takes place on a Saturday.

Mr. Sharples: I am sure that notice will be taken of what the right hon. Gentleman has said, but it is not always practical for Royal visitors to arrive on a Saturday or a Sunday.

Mr. Lipton: Would it not be sensible to suggest to the Commissioner of Police that streets need not be closed for hours before the procession is due to pass? The streets are closed for a much longer period than is absolutely necessary.

Mr. Sharples: The hon. Gentleman will have noticed that the period during which streets are closed has been progressively reduced over recent years. One has to bear in mind the time needed for troops to be stationed along a Royal procession route. The policy of the police is to close streets for as short a time as possible.

Civil Defence

Mr. Blaker: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is now in a position to announce the results of his review of civil defence.

Mr. Sharples: I expect a detailed circular to be issued to local authorities next month.

Mr. Blaker: Is my hon. Friend aware that many units of the Voluntary Civil Aid Service have maintained themselves in existence for many years now in the expectation that this Government proposal would provide them with an opportunity to continue to play a satisfying rôle? Will he give the House an assurance that that will be so?

Mr. Sharples: My right hon. Friend gave a full reply to a Question asked by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) on 5th August, in which he set out the Government's policy. In so far as voluntary organisations of this kind can play a part in local authority plans, it is our view that they should play as full a part as possible.

Mr. William Price: Is it not clear that civil defence is a "con" trick inflicted on people who would have no hope of survival in a nuclear conflict? Why does not the Minister give to those who, with good intentions, engage in civil defence a real rôle in emergency and accident work?

Mr. Sharples: The rôle played by those who work in conjunction with local authorities can be in civil defence and in emergencies of other kinds, but this is a matter which should be co-ordinated by the local authorities.

Mr. McCrindle: Contrary to what was said by the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. William Price), will my hon. Friend note that there is great disappointment that he has not followed the considerable local interest and effort which has been shown in this matter by a clear decision to put the Government squarely behind civil defence?

Mr. Sharples: As I said in reply to an earlier supplementary question, my right hon. Friend gave a very full statement of the Government's policy on 5th August, and I have nothing to add to that.

Alimony

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Deparement how many letters he received in December, 1971, from women concerning their failure to receive alimony granted to them by court order.

Mr. Carlisle: During December three letters were received from women complaining about the enforcement of maintenance orders in magistrates' courts in England and Wales.

Mr. Dalyell: I acknowledge what the Government have done about attachment of earnings, but do they imagine that they have solved the problem? Does the hon. and learned Gentleman realise that Members of Parliament are getting twice as many letters on this matter as before?

Mr. Carlisle: No, I do not for a moment think that one has solved the problem. The problem is that of achieving means of geting money out of people who, for some reason or another, may be unable to pay or determined not to pay. This is an extraordinarily difficult problem. However, as the hon. Gentleman appreciates, we have taken certain actions to strengthen the court machinery for enforcing maintenance orders.

Northern Ireland

Mr. Duffy: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he next expects to visit Northern Ireland.

Mr. Maudling: I have at present no date fixed for another visit to Northern Ireland.

Mr. Duffy: Does the Home Secretary, following his last visit to Northern Ireland, recall having been reported in The Guardian as saying that he saw little likelihood of a final military solution to the Northern Ireland crisis? Will he explain why he has been so reluctant to bring forward his own political initiative? Does he not regard the events of the last few days, culminating in this morning's shootings, as an ominous development? May I take this opportunity of expressing to the relatives of the deceased my personal sorrow and, I am sure, that of hon. Members on all sides of the House? If the Home Secretary will not bring forward a political initiative with regard to his security responsibilities, will he seek to ease the situation and facilitate all-party talks?

Mr. Maudling: I am sure the whole House joins with the hon. Gentleman in expressing sympathy to the relatives of those who are the most recent murder victims of the campaign of terrorism.


The phrase "political initiative" is sometimes used a little loosely. The initiative the Government have taken is to propose talks with all concerned to achieve, for minority and majority communities alike, an active, permanent and guaranteed rôle by agreement in the life of the Province. One can only get agreement by consultation and discussion. One cannot hold discussions with people who will not participate in discussion.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: Bearing in mind that it was two of my constituents who were so brutally murdered this morning, would my right hon. Friend urge as many hon. Members opposite as possible who have not been to Northern Ireland to go there and try to satisfy themselves, by talking to all kinds of people, that there are few if any grievances remaining which could be put right legislatively? Will he persuade them to return to this House and urge those who have left public life to return to it and try to give the framework offered to them a fair chance? Is not this a way in which loss of life may be averted in Northern Ireland?

Mr. Maudling: I welcome visits by hon. Members to Northern Ireland. I have always made it clear that we as a Government believe there must be a twin solution, military and political. Those who commit violence merely put off further the day of solution.

Mr. Orme: Is the Home Secretary aware that I, as one hon. Member who has recently spent three days in the Bog-side and in Belfast, believe the situation is desperate in those two cities and that some initiative is needed by the Government, but that another internment campaign will not solve the problem? In fact the situation which exists at the moment shows that internment has failed. When will the Home Secretary take a political initiative?

Mr. Maudling: The hon. Gentleman is repeating what he has said time and again.

Mr. Orme: And I will go on saying It.

Mr. Maudling: I do not accept what he says about internment. The best political initiative that could be taken

would be if minority representatives would come and talk to us.

Mr. Kilfedder: When next my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary visits Northern Ireland, will he visit many of the families who have been bereaved as a result of the activities of these evil men, members of the I.R.A.'? Would he not agree that, having had such direct experience of their anguish, which reflects the anguish of all the people of Northern Ireland, he would be in a better position to persuade his right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary to bring pressure on the Eire Government to drop their hypocritical attitude and put an end to I.R.A. publicity, I.R.A. recruiting campaigns in the South, and giving them the opportunity to publicise the activities of those who have escaped from internment camps?

Mr. Maudling: That question goes a long way beyond the original Question and is not one I can satisfactorily deal with in question and answer. I appreciate my hon. Friend's feelings of revulsion that people who have committed murder should flaunt themselves in other countries.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: Is the Home Secretary aware that all of us who have visited Northern Ireland are well aware that there is no easy solution to this problem? Is he also aware that we know that Her Majesty's Government are prepared for talks on all aspects of the Northern Ireland issue. Is that the view of Mr. Faulkner? Has the right hon. Gentleman noted that Mr. Lynch has said within the last 48 hours in a wider context that he will be prepared to talk before internment finishes? Has the right hon. Gentleman spoken to the S.D.L.P. recently, because there is urgent need for talks to begin?

Mr. Maudling: I agree that there is urgent need for talks to begin, and I hope that talks between the parties in this Parliament may be taking place in the very near future. As for the S.D.L.P., I have repeatedly asked its representatives to come and talk to me on the basis of no conditions on either side and time and again they have refused.

Mr. Cronin: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what further progress has now been made in


achieving a political settlement satisfactory to the Catholic minority in Ulster.

Mr. Maudling: I am not in a position to add to the reply I gave to a question by the hon. Member on 2nd December.—[Vol. 827, c. 624–5.]

Mr. Cronin: Does the Home Secretary agree that the chief reason so far for the failure of the British Army to deal with I.R.A. terrorism is lack of co-operation by the Catholic minority based on a conviction that the Army is largely a creature of the Stormont Government? Would it not be desirable therefore, to achieve some improvement in the situation, if the control of security were transferred from Stormont to Westminster as soon as possible?

Mr. Maudling: The progress made by the Army recently has been considerable, and although I.R.A. propaganda has always said that the Army is the creature of the Stormont Parliament it is generally recognised by fair-minded people that that is not so. I must repeat that progress in such matters can be achieved only by agreement, and agreement can be achieved only when we can get together and discuss outstanding problems.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is not the only settlement acceptable to very many Catholics, particularly those who, despite atrocious terror, are serving the Crown in the R.U.C., the U.D.R. and other services, one which maintains the Union? May they have the assurance that they will not be sold down the Irish Sea?

Mr. Maudling: Like our predecessors, the Government have repeated time and again the pledge given in the 1949 Act.

Mr. Stallard: Will the Home Secretary accept that there is widespread support, both in this country and in the Six Counties, for the view that repression will never solve the problems of the Six Counties? Would not the right hon. Gentleman accept that in order to get these discussions going, real political initiatives along the following lines will have to be taken? First, he will very shortly have to discuss the suspension of Stormont; second, certainly the ending of internment, and third, the return of control of security matters to Westminster. Will he take positive steps to do those three things in order

to create an atmosphere in which discussions can take place?

Mr. Maudling: I have indicated several times, as I have this afternoon, that I have been hoping to have talks with the political representatives of the community on a wide range and without conditions. What I cannot accept is that before they are prepared to talk they must have their wishes granted.

Mr. McMaster: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that the main problem in Northern Ireland is not that of satisfying the minority with the many political reforms which have been introduced over the last two or three years but of dealing with the callous, small group of Republicans who have, with wanton cruelty, murdered many hundreds of innocent civilians, sometimes in front of their wives and children, and have let off bombs in crowded places, thereby injuring and maiming hundreds of others, in order, by extreme violence, murder and the threat of violence, to achieve a political end?

Mr. Maudling: I think it is generally agreed on both sides of the House that the suppression of brutal murder should be the first priority. But the problems of a settlement go much further than that, and much further than I can reasonably answer at Question Time.

Mr. Heffer: Has the right hon. Gentleman's attention been drawn to the last Monday's edition of the Belfast Telegraph, which is not a minority paper but which clearly pointed out that the initiative must lie with the Westminster Government and that the first thing that has to be done is to transfer responsibility for security to Westminster? Is it not clear that the Government must take this sort of initiative now in order to achieve the talks which, I hope, would eventually lead to an end of the violence in Northern Ireland?

Mr. Maudling: I would not and cannot accept that position. The facts are that there is a very wide gap between the two communities' attitudes on these important matters of security. Where there is a wide gap, my job is to bridge it. I cannot begin to do so until the two sides will come and take part in talks.

Community Relations (Notting Hill)

Mr. Douglas-Mann: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will set up an inquiry into relations between the police and the black community in Notting Hill.

Mr. Arthur Davidson: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, in view of Judge Edward Clarke's remarks as presiding judge at the Mangrave trial that there was evidence of racial hatred on both sides, he will institute an inquiry into relations between the police and coloured citizens.

Mr. Maudling: I am still considering a very detailed report which I have received from the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis. The Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration, which is inquiring into relations between the police and coloured people, will be visiting Notting Hill shortly.

Mr. Douglas-Mann: I welcome the indication given by the Home Secretary that he will review the situation after he has the Select Committee's Report. Would he take note of the fact that a very large body of moderate opinion, both in the area and outside it, feels that an inquiry of the kind requested in the Question is absolutely essential; that there is a danger of racial violence in the area which has not existed for many years; that the acquittals in the Mangrave case raise a strong inference that a number of police officers were lying in concert and that, with the connivance of senior officers, they have been responsible for persecution of particularly articulate black people in the area; that this is only an inference and that, as the current issue of the Police Journal makes clear—[HON. MEMBERS: "Too long."]—only such an inquiry will clear the imputations which have been raised against the police officers concerned—

Mr. Speaker: Order. There must be a limit to the length of supplementary questions.

Mr. Maudling: I do not in any way accept the imputations based on the result of that particular case. I do not think it would be wise for me in an answer this afternoon to go further than to say what I have already said. I am considering the detailed report.

Mr. Davidson: In view of the unusually strong words used by the judge in what in itself was a disturbing trial, does not the Home Secretary think that it is in the interests both of the police and of the coloured community that there should be an immediate inquiry into these allegations in case there has been some sort of breakdown in communications on both sides leading to a serious crisis of confidence?

Mr. Maudling: If I were persuaded that an inquiry of that kind would be of service, I would proceed to one. I am not sure that I am persuaded at present.

Mrs. Knight: Would my right hon. Friend agree that as long ago as last October it was decided that the Select Committee should look into these matters and that it is doing so in a very searching manner?

Mr. Maudling: Yes, and I think that its visit will be valuable.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: I welcome the visit of the Select Committee. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that he has a special responsibility for good relations between the Metropolitan police and the coloured community. In view of the serious rumours which are circulating in Notting Hill, will he seriously consider whether, following his study of the report, an inquiry in this case might be highly desirable?

Mr. Maudling: May I first welcome the hon. Lady in her new capacity on the Front Bench. Certainly I will consider proposals. What I am concerned about is to see that community relations in this area not only are good, but are known and recognised to be good.

School Crossing Patrol (Putney)

Mr, Hugh Jenkins: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will ensure that the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis reconsiders the request of the Inner London Education Authority for a school crossing patrol for Beaumont Road, Putney, taking into account the fact that over 200 children under 11 years of age cross at a time when on average 258 vehicles pass along the road.

Mr. Sharples: The results of a survey made earlier this month are being studied.

Mr. Jenkins: When the Home Secretary studies the survey, I hope he will bear in mind that I have in my hand a petition signed on behalf of 150 parents representing a similar number of children at the school. Would he also bear in mind that everybody concerned in the area—the Member of Parliament, Greater London Council representatives, the borough council and the Inner London Education Authority—believes that this crossing is necessary? At the moment, only the police are holding out.

Mr. Sharples: As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have had a considerable amount of correspondence about the crossing. The survey report is being made to the Metropolitan Police and I will write to the hon. Gentleman and inform him immediately the result of the survey is known.

Carlisle State Management (Sale of Premises)

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress has been made in the selling of the State-owned public houses in the Carlisle State Management District.

Mr. Carlisle: Thirty-seven of the smaller public houses in the Carlisle district have been offered to the tenants or managers, over half of whom have already accepted. Details of sale of the remaining public houses will be announced when preparatory work has been completed.

Mr. Hamilton: Can the hon. and learned Gentleman tell us where individual tenants are getting the money from? Is there any indication that they are getting it from the big brewers? Will the hon. and learned Gentleman tell us why Watney has not so far made its £25,000 contribution to Tory Party funds this year? Is it because the chairman is no longer an official in the Tory Party?

Mr. Carlisle: In reply to the first part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, I cannot say where individual tenants or managers are getting their money from. I should have thought that it was a personal matter for them to decide where they raise the necessary money to buy their public houses and not necessarily a matter for this House.

The second part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question does not appear to arise from the Question.

Mr. Ron Lewis: Will the Minister confirm that some of the brewery companies have refused to lend money to would-be tenants because they themselves are in the queue? Does he care to comment on that?

Mr. Carlisle: With respect, one hon. Gentleman complains because they are lending money and another complains because they are not. As I said, it is a matter purely for the individual tenant who is given the opportunity to purchase to decide whether he wishes to purchase and to make his own arrangements for obtaining the necessary finance to do so.

Shoplifting (Inquiry)

Mr. Adley: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the progress of the inquiry set up by his Department into certain aspects of shoplifting.

Mr. Sharples: The Working Party on Internal Shop Security is still taking evidence and is unlikely to report for some time.

Mr. Adley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the obviously thorough work which the committee is doing. Is he aware that this problem is causing increasing public concern, that the Bristol Chamber of Commerce has now brought out a report referring to shoplifting as a social disease and that reliable statistics show that shoplifting is the biggest single crime in the Western world? Will he confirm that he recognises that the Government have a responsibility to study and act on these problems?

Mr. Sharples: Yes. That is why the working party has been set up to carry out the study. I know that a great deal of work has been done in Bristol where an interesting symposium was held.

Mr. J. T. Price: I am sure that no one in this House would condone shoplifting or give any encouragement to people who indulge in such practices. Is the Minister aware that the prevailing mood of retail distribution. in which the great operators of retail chain stores place an ever-increasing burden on the


customer to find his own goods and dismiss shop assistants in the interests of self-service and higher profits, is an important contributory cause of shoplifting?

Mr. Sharples: Yes. One result which I hope will emerge from the working party's study is that some of the temptations to people to shoplift will be removed.

Electoral Registers (Sale)

Mr. Hunt: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what conclusions he has now reached regarding the need for restrictions on the sale of electoral registers.

Mr. Sharples: I have nothing at present to add to the reply given to a Question by the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) on 22nd November.—[Vol. 826, c. 290.]

Mr. Hunt: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that people bitterly resent their names and addresses being made available without their knowledge or consent to commercial firms which then bombard them with unwelcome and unwanted literature? Is my hon. Friend aware that there is evidence that these registers are sometimes obtained by criminals who then use them to check on the occupants of residential property before carrying out burglaries? Is it not time that we had a positive announcement of the Government's intention?

Mr. Sharples: Yes, I am well aware of the feeling about this matter. It is not a simple question to resolve. We want to ensure that those who need the register for genuine purposes are able to obtain it without too much difficulty. We have to try to maintain a balance.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that local authorities only have power to sell their surplus electoral registers in addition to those which they have to give to political parties? Is he aware that, as the law stands, local authorities do not have to make any inquiry into the bona fides of anybody seeking these registers? Will he do something to stop the ever-increasing amount of pollution which comes through our letter-boxes every morning because of direct mail order outfits?

Mr. Sharples: As I have said, this is not an easy problem. It is not easy for local authorities to check the bona fides of all people requiring the register. We

are looking at this problem very carefully but I do not see an easy solution to it.

Fire Precautions Act (Designation of Buildings)

Mr. Moate: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can now indicate what programme he has in mind with regard to the designation of buildings under the Fire Precautions Act; whether he has yet decided what particular categories of buildings shall be designated; when a designation order with regard to such categories is likely to be made; and if, in this field, he will give urgent attention to school buildings.

Mr. Sharples: The Act will first be applied to hotels and boarding houses. My right hon Friend hopes to make the necessary orders in the next few weeks. The Central Fire Brigades Advisory Councils are considering which classes of premises should next be brought under control.

Mr. Moate: I am sure that many people will welcome the designation of those categories of buildings. Does my hon. Friend recall the survey undertaken last year which showed that many head teachers in schools did not take the risk of fire seriously and that fire drills were undertaken infrequently and sometimes not at all, yet last year there was a serious increase in the number of large fires in schools? Will my hon. Friend do his utmost to see that schools are designated under the Act as soon as possible?

Mr. Sharples: The considerations advanced by my hon. Friend will be taken into account by the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Councils. Although there are a large number of fires in schools in which property is damaged, fortunately the number of casualties is very small.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: While it is proper for the Home Department to consider liaison at local level concerning schools, may I ask the hon. Gentleman to consult the Department of Education and Science, which designs schools which are erected to a pattern in different parts of the country, because it is apparent that little thought has been given to fire precautions before they are designed? I suggest that the Department's inspectors could well consult the D.E.S.

Mr. Sharples: Yes, I will certainly consider the hon. Gentleman's sugestion.

Drug Offences (Young Persons)

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many young persons between the ages of 18 and 21 years were prosecuted for drug offences in the period 1st January, 1970, to 31st December, 1970, and 1st January, 1971, to 31st December, 1971.

Mr. Sharples: In 1970, the latest year for which statistics are available, 4,481 persons aged 18 and under 22 were proceeded against in England and Wales for offences under the Dangerous Drugs Acts, 1965 and 1967, or the Drugs (Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1964.

Mr. McNair-Wilson: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply, but I naturally regret that he cannot give me the figures for 1971. I am sure he will agree that many people wonder whether prosecutions for drug offences tell us the whole truth about drug-taking habits among young people. Since I fear that the new figures may be higher, may I ask whether my hon. Friend has considered calling a meeting of educationists, youth club organisers and the police to formulate new ways of making the drug danger apparent to young people and to find out where they get their supplies?

Mr. Sharples: This will be one of the functions of the Drugs Advisory Council which has just been set up. It was Parliament's decision that it should be given an educational as well as a preventive rôle. I hope that it will take into account what my hon. Friend has said.

Mr. Cronin: Does not the hon. Gentleman's reply indicate the extraordinary disparity between the active exertions of the Home Department against the use of drugs and the comparative laxity of the Government regarding tobacco, which is the most dangerous drug of all?

Mr. Sharples: Tobacco may be dangerous but it is not illegal.

Totalisator

Mr. Golding: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proposals he has received to improve the financial viability of the Totalisator; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Maudling: I have received a number of suggestions, including one from the National Association of Bookmakers that

its members should co-operate with the Totalisator Board in promoting its jackpot. The board is following this up. If a practical solution emerges, I shall be glad to consider it: but it would need to be underpinned by the legislation which I have introduced to remove the competitive disabilities of the Tote.

Mr. Golding: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his Bill has caused very strong criticisms of the present administration of the Tote? Will he take steps not only to protect the Tote but also to improve its management?

Mr. Maudling: One of the provisions of the Bill—I hope that I am not out of order in saying this—will be to provide an opportunity of a larger board. But one of the serious problems one faces is to put the Tote in the position where it can compete fairly with bookmakers.

Deportations

Mr. Gurden: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the number of deportations recommended by the courts in each of the past five years; and how many of these were cancelled by him.

Mr. Maudling: As the reply contains a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Gurden: Does not my right hon. Friend consider that the courts have taken into account all the relevant considerations on every individual case? Why should the Home Office upturn the courts' recommendations?

Mr. Maudling: In a number of cases further facts become available after the decision has been made. In a number of cases people leave the country immediately anyway. In a number of cases, we think it is probably better all round to have supervised departure rather than deportation. In general, obviously I am swayed very much by the recommendations of a court which has heard the case and seen the individual. I would not want to depart from those recommendations except for very strong reasons.

Mr. Pavitt: Would the right hon. Gentleman convey the thanks of many hon. Members to the staff in his private office who deal with this subject? Those of us who have a large immigrant population in our constituences sometimes need to move very quickly regarding a


deportation order. The staff deal with the matter most promptly, and we are most grateful for the action they take in these cases.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Maudling: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the tribute he has paid to those who work with me at the Home Office and who give the greatest care and attention to all these cases.

Following is the information:


Year
Recommendations made by courts(1)
Decisions not to give effect to recommendations(2)


1967
512
189


1968
635
253


1969
747
294


1970
775
209


1971
772
206

Notes:

1. The first column does not include cases in which a recommendation was set aside on appeal.

2. Decisions not to give effect to recommendations may be taken either on merits or because, for example—
(a) the recommendation was invalid as the notice of liability to deportation was not served as required by statute, or was invalid or of doubtful validity for other reasons;
(b) the person may have established that he was in law exempt from liability to deportation; or
(c) the person may have left the country voluntarily or be prepared to leave under supervised departure.

3. The first and second columns relate to the same periods but not to the same cases; for example the second column for 1967 includes some recommendations made in 1966, and not all the recommendations made in 1967, some of which will have been the subject of decisions by the Secretary of State in 1968.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIME MINISTER OF INDIA

Mr. Onslow: asked the Prime Minister when he next expects to have an official meeting with Mrs. Gandhi.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Edward Heath): I met Mrs. Gandhi when she visited London in November. Although we have at present no plans for further meetings, we continue to keep in close touch.

Mr. Onslow: If my right hon. Friend meets Mrs. Gandhi again in the near future, would he suggest to her that in the long run victory in war may be less important than magnanimity in peace? Would he add that people in Britain who contributed to repairing the tragic damage of the recent events in the sub-continent

also have a right to expect that India will do everything possible to reach a lasting settlement with Pakistan?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. It is Her Majesty's Government's desire that there should be a lasting settlement between Pakistan and India. My right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary will be in Delhi from 5th to 8th February having talks with the Indian Government. When Sheikh Mujib came to see me at No. 10, I explained to him that our policy was to try to get good relations between the three countries of the Indian sub-continent. I have since repeated that in personal messages to President Bhutto and Mrs. Gandhi.

Mr. Douglas-Mann: Is the Prime Minister aware that the overwhelming majority of opinion in Britain is that the course taken by India in recent months has been one of great magnanimity, that it has undertaken, as a poor country, immense burdens and that it is hoped that Britain will help to relieve the hardship India has suffered as a result of the burdens she has undertaken?

The Prime Minister: As the House knows, we made a considerable effort to help India with the problem of 10 million refugees. We have already said—and I said this to Sheikh Mujib—that we would do our utmost to help Bangladesh in the present situation. We have already told President Bhutto that, in the work of the consortium, we will play our fair part in helping Pakistan.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL SERVANTS (NUMBER)

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Prime Minister if he is satisfied with the coordination between the Civil Service Department and the Treasury, the Department of Employment, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of Health and Social Security in the reduction in numbers of civil servants in those Departments, in view of the figures announced in the Annual Report of the Civil Service Department; and if he will make a statement.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. The Civil Service Department approved the increases and decreases in staff numbers in individual Departments shown in its 1970–71 Report.

Mr. Dalyell: How is it that under the present Government the numbers of non-industrial civil servants have been rising at the rate of 100 per week?

The Prime Minister: For a variety of reasons, which I should have thought the hon. Gentleman would have deduced. He might also have asked me why the number of industrial civil servants had fallen by 6,850—rather more than the same rate. The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well concerning non-industrials that there has been an extension of services to the community, particularly with the Department of Health and Social Security, which has led to this increase.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: Is it not a fact that the total number of civil servants rose by no less than 28,000 in the period between April, 1964, and April, 1970, which is more or less the period of the late and unlamented Labour Government, and that in the subsequent year the figure went down by 1,000?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. In their predictions, the numbers would have continued to rise substantially

Mr. Sheldon: Is not the reason why the number of industrial civil servants has fallen that they are not being employed by the Government but by other bodies? Is it not the real issue that in the Conservative Party's election manifesto the Prime Minister promised that there would be a reduction in the number of civil servants? For the first time ever, it is now in excess of half a million. Does the Prime Minister intend to redeem that pledge?

The Prime Minister: If they are not employed by the Government, obviously they are not civil servants. I should have thought that that was quite plain. What the Government are doing is to ensure that where certain services are required directly by the comunity—in the main, health and social security services—they are provided.

Sir D. Renton: Does it remain the intention of the Government ultimately to arrive at an overall reduction in the number of non-industrial civil servants?

The Prime Minister: Where non-industrial civil servants are concerned it is important to distinguish between those employed at headquarters and those em

ployed on direct services to the community—[Interruption]. If hon. Members opposite do not want people to look after the aged and infirm, they should say so. But we have always recognised that the increasing population and the increasing number of old people must be looked after.

Mr. Molloy: Does not the Prime Minister agree that the views of the National Staff Side and of the staff associations and trade unions in the Civil Service are important and that proper cognisance should be taken of them? If the right hon. Gentleman agrees, may we have an assurance that, in future discussions on possible curtailment of staff, all the staff associations will have their proper rights and no impediment will be placed in the way of their negotiation and arbitration methods?

The Prime Minister: I think that I can give an unqualified assurance to the hon. Gentleman, not only for the future but also for the whole time that this Government have been in office. If the hon. Gentleman knows of instances about which he wishes to complain, he should let me have details of them. I have met the staff associations and we have discussed not only this problem but the question of redeployment and movement about the country. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Civil Service Department is in constant touch with them, as are my right hon. and noble Friend the Lord Privy Seal and the Head of the Civil Service. I know of no complaints from the Civil Service associations. They have been taken into consultation on every aspect of their work.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRESIDENT NIXON (DISCUSSIONS)

Mr. Duffy: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on his recent official meeting with President Nixon.

The Prime Minister: I would refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave on 18th January to Questions from my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker) and the hon. Members for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) and Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun).—[Vol. 829, c. 150–1.]

Mr. Duffy: Is the Prime Minister aware that a far-reaching protectionist Measure the Hartke-Burke Bill now before Congress, would, if passed, threaten British exports and American investment in the United Kingdom? Did the right hon. Gentleman express to the President his anxiety that no further barriers to trade should be erected between the two countries and his hope that the President will resist any temptation to borrow from this legislation during this election year?

The Prime Minister: I agree entirely about the effect of the Bill to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, if it ever became law. I am sure that he will also agree that it runs entirely contrary to the policy of the United States Administration. Naturally, we hope that this is not a Bill which will find its place on the Statute Book.

Mr. Blaker: Despite differences of opinion on trade matters between the United States and the six European Community countries, did the President confirm to my right hon. Friend that it remains the policy of his Administration to welcome British entry into the Communities?

The Prime Minister: The President confirmed this at Bermuda, and he issued a public statement on Saturday when I signed the Treaty of Accession which again emphasised this point.

Mr. Michael Foot: Since this question was not dealt with by the Prime Minister in his previous statements, will he say whether, at Bermuda or subsequently, he has protested against the renewal of the bombing of North Vietnam by American forces and whether, on this question, he agrees or disagrees with statements which have been made by the French Government?

The Prime Minister: Statements made by the French Government are a matter for them. As for Vietnam, the President explained in an earlier statement the purposes of the bombing and how it had been found necessary to carry it out.

Oral Answers to Questions — DERBY

Mr. Whitehead: asked the Prime Minister if he will make an official visit to Derby.

The Prime Minister: I have at present no plans to do so.

Mr. Whitehead: I wish to congratulate the Prime Minister about that. It will preserve him for the time being from the wrath of the unemployed there. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the 4,800 unemployed there what he failed to tell me in the recent economic debate: what remedy he has for the problem of structural unemployment which is now affecting thousands of skilled workers in Derby and throughout the Midlands?

The Prime Minister: I dealt with that question in some detail in the debate. I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman's constituents would have welcomed the fact that the Government, after tough negotiations with the firm concerned and the American Government, made successful arrangements for the RB211.

Mr. Rost: When my right hon. Friend next visits Derby, will he take note of the widespread support expressed there about his successful initiative in getting Britain into Europe, this support having been expressed not only by local industry and those employed in it but by all local Members of Parliament representing both sides of the House?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir, and I think it is obvious that some of the major industries in Derby are those which most want a close relationship with members of the Community.

Mr. Michael Foot: If the Prime Minister is so confident that he has widespread support and full-hearted consent for entry into the Common Market, for which he did not seek a mandate at the last General Election, why does he not refer the matter to the British people for them to give their verdict?

The Prime Minister: If the hon. Gentleman was trying to represent his Leader and Deputy Leader, he might have put forward less outdated arguments and dealt with the present situation.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTTISH COUNCIL (DISCUSSIONS)

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on his recent discussions and correspondence with the Scottish Council on the need for new initiatives in regional economic policy.

The Prime Minister: I would refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 20th January to a Question from the hon. Member for Rutherglen (Mr. Gregor Mackenzie).—[Vol. 829, c. 250.]

Mr. Hamilton: Does not the Prime Minister recognise that the Scottish Council, which is a non-political body, has been highly critical of the Government's regional policies and that its criticisms are more than adequately borne out by the intolerably high unemployment figures in Scotland and elsewhere? When will the Government produce a White Paper indicating in what ways the current regional policies are different from those of the previous Government and how far they have been successful as compared with those operated before 1970?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman's Question refers to the meeting that I had with the Scottish Council. He will have seen in the Scottish Press that the council expressed its warm welcome of our discussion. The council put to me two major proposals which are now being examined by Government Departments, and we discussed a variety of other detailed matters which it wished to raise.
The hon. Gentleman asks for a White Paper. The original arrangements for regional policy were set out in a White Paper. If the hon. Gentleman wants further information, certainly I am prepared to look into it.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Did the representatives of the Scottish Council, as they should have done, draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to the burden on the Scottish economy which is at present resulting from the disastrous increases in taxation on road transport imposed by the last Government and the manner in which the fiscal system drives private companies with Scottish roots and identities into the arms of English and multinational companies with neither?

The Prime Minister: Those two points were not raised by the Scottish Council in my recent discussions with it. They are points about which representations have been made in the past and which are quite valid.

Mr. Grimond: Will the right hon. Gentleman assure us that the point about the additional transport charges is also being closely studied and that actions will be taken on it? Secondly, as regards the two major proposals of the Scottish Council, when does the right hon. Gentleman hope to give the council an answer and, even more important, to take action upon them?

The Prime Minister: I will ensure that the transport matter is considered. As for the two major items, oil exploitation on the East Coast and the developments at Hunterston, I was able to assure the Scottish Council that these matters were being examined urgently by the Departments concerned. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has already taken action in some respects on planning at Hunterston and about an inquiry in respect of its development. Certainly we shall produce a decision at the earliest possible moment.

Oral Answers to Questions — SOUTH AFRICA

Mr. Arthur Davidson: asked the Prime Minister when he next intends to meet the Prime Minister of the Republic of South Africa.

The Prime Minister: I have at present no plans to do so.

Mr. Davidson: In view of the Foreign Secretary's complete inability to get any information from Mr. Smith as to what his intentions are and why he indulges in such boorish behaviour—even by his standards—does not the Prime Minister think that it might be worthwhile having a crack at Mr. Vorster, who obviously understand Mr. Smith very well and might be able to enlighten him as to what Mr. Smith is playing at?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir, I do not think there would be any purpose in doing that.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: On a point of order. May I refer to a matter arising out of the Answer given by the Home Secretary today to Question No. 18, put to him by the hon. Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. Clinton Davis)? I think it will be within the recollection of the House and yourself, Mr. Speaker, that in answering that Question the Home Secretary undertook to inform the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) who is direcly affected—and the only hon. Member directly affected in this case—of the outcome of a certain inquiry which he had instigated. The hon. Member for Hackney, Central, then gave notice that he wished to raise the matter on the Adjournment in view of what he regarded as the unsatisfactory nature of the reply.
I put it to you that it is understood by all hon. Members that once an hon. Member gives notice that he intends to raise a matter on the Adjournment that prevents any further questions on that matter going down on the Order Paper. In view of the fact that the right hon. Member for Leeds, East, was not present when this Question was answered today, may I suggest that, even if there is no Standing Order covering the matter, it is a long-standing, common practice of this House that hon. Members do not prevent another hon. Member on behalf of whom they may have raised a question from having the first opportunity of commenting on a Ministerial reply directly affecting themselves, which is the effect of the action taken by the hon. Member for Hackney, Central today.

Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. and gallant Member for raising this point. I will give my opinion straight away and consider afterwards whether I am correct. My impression is that all that giving notice of intention to raise a matter on the Adjournment does is to stop further supplementary questions. I do not think it rules out further questions later.

Mr. Clinton Davis: Further to that point of order. One of the purposes as I understand it of giving notice in that way is to raise a point of principle as well of which one feels there has been a breach. It was for that reason that I took the action I did this afternoon.

STANDING COMMITTEE H

Mr. Buchan: On a point of order. May I raise a matter of general and particular importance? This morning Standing Committee H commenced discussion of the Agricultural (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill when the general point was raised of the difficulty in which the Committee found itself. It was about to discuss agricultural matters and it is likely to continue in operation during the period when the E.E.C. Bill will be discussed. One Bill would be negating the other. It seemed to us that a general point of parliamentary procedure was involved and we sought to adjourn the Sitting of the Committee until this question of divergent policies was resolved—

Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Member for having given me notice of his intention to raise this matter. I have taken advice and I am told I must rule that matters arising in Standing Committee cannot be discussed on the Floor of the House as the conduct of the Committee rests with its Chairman and cannot be raised formally on a point of order. That is the advice I have received and I must so rule.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Harold Wilson: May I ask the Leader of the House to state the business for next week and, so far as he can, the future business of the House?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. William Whitelaw): The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 31ST JANUARY.—Supply (10th allotted day): There will be a debate on an Opposition Motion on unemployment in the engineering, metal and shipbuilding industries.
Motion relating to the Industrial Relations Act 1971 (Commencement No. 3) Order.
TUESDAY, 1ST FEBRUARY.—Second Reading of the Electricity Bill.
Motion on the Redundancy Fund (Advances out of the National Loans Fund) Order.
WEDNESDAY, 2ND FEBRUARY.—Debate on a Motion to approve the Code of Industrial Relations Practice.
Motions relating to the Industrial Relations Act, 1971 (Commencement Nos. 1 and 2) Orders.
THURSDAY, 3RD FEBRUARY.—Second Reading of the Horserace Totalisor and Betting Levy Boards Bill.
Second Reading of the Local Employment Bill [Lords] and the Summer Time Bill [Lords], which are Consolidation Measures.
Motion on the Sunday Entertainments Act 1932 Tynemouth Order.
FRIDAY, 4TH FEBRUARY.—Private Members' Bills.
MONDAY, 7TH FEBRUARY.—Consideration of Private Members' Motions until Seven o'clock.
Afterwards, Second Reading of the Transport (Grants) Bill.

Mr. Harold Wilson: The House will have noticed the fascinating list the right hon. Gentleman has read out for next week. Is he aware that many hon. Members are concerned about what is to happen after that and that the point of order which has just been raised, although technically out of order, is indicative of the effects on the immediate working of this House and its Committees next week.
May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, as the Bill dealing with the Common Market was published yesterday, whether he will take note of our view that it would be totally wrong to proceed on the timetable which has been given to the Press for a debate of this magnitude, affecting not only the wide issues covered or excluded from the Bill, but also the whole issue of the rights of this House now and possibly for many years to come? Will he therefore say now that there will be adequate time for the House to study, next week and subsequently, not merely the Bill but also the mass of documentation which the House is being asked to turn into legislation, governing the people of this country, their rights and the rights of our courts? Will he take note that time will be required for this and much more time than has been

usually granted will be needed for the Second Reading debate?
Finally, in a personal sense, the whole House will agree with me that during the period the right hon. Gentleman has been Leader of the House he has been regarded as a Minister highly sensitive to the rights and needs of the House as a whole and whenever there have been complaints about the slightest derogations they have been small compared with those of most of his predecessors, of all parties. [Laughter.] If the rights of this House, which have not been contested in 600 years, are a laughing matter I still intend to continue. The Prime Minister should not laugh because he is custodian of the rights of the House as much as any of us. Does the Leader of the House agree that legislation affecting legislation carried in this House—repealing or amending that which has gone through the legislative procedure of Second Reading, Committee, Report and Third Reading as well as the procedure in another place—can be repealed or amended only by legislative procedure in this House? If he were to default on this then all trust between him and the House will come to an end.

Mr. Whitelaw: I am always grateful for compliments wherever they come from or however barbed they may be. As for what the right hon. Gentleman said about the European Communities Bill, I would not be prepared to stand here as Leader of the House if I did not believe that the Bill was prepared in a perfectly constitutional manner and is absolutely constitutional in every way. I am certainly prepared to listen to representations about the handling of the Bill and to have discussions through the usual channels about the timing of the Second Reading debate and its length. It may, however, be helpful to the House if I say at this stage that, at the conclusion of the Second Reading debate, the Government will move a Motion to commit the Bill to a Committee of the whole House.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: Does my right hon. Friend accept that there will be general pleasure at what he has just said with regard to the European Communities Bill being taken in Committee of the whole House? In order to inform the House as to the position of Parliament in the event of entry, would he consider


the preparation of a White Paper showing what, in practice, has been the influence of the Parliaments of the Six in Community affairs? Has he, in this context, noted the very interesting article by Mr. Ronald Butt in today's The Times, concluding that their influence is on a much more modest scale than would be acceptable to the vigorous parliamentary tradition?

Mr. Whitelaw: Yes, I note what my right hon. and learned Friend has said about Parliament's decision. It is fair to point out that a joint Committee of both Houses is at the moment sitting on the whole question of subordinate legislation. This can, of course, consider these matters. We also have the prospect put forward by the Select Committee on Procedure that there should be a Committee looking into the legislative process in a more general sense. This will be set up. I am prepared to consider the representations. We should see the reports of these Committees, which will be extremely important and valuable.

Mr. Michael Foot: May I say to the right hon. Gentleman that, since some of us have said for some time that it would be intolerable if any section of the Bill were debated other than on the Floor of the House, we are grateful that that is acknowledged by the Government? But can he tell us of any Bill ever presented to the House of Commons—particularly a Bill with such profound and, as is claimed, irrevocable effects on the status and powers of the House—which has required such formidable documentation as has been presented to the House over recent weeks?
Since every hon. Member has the right to consider these documents and to consult his constituents and the various interests in his constituency about them, does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it would conform to the precedents of this House if he were to give a period of, say, at least a month for hon. Members to be able to carry out these discussions? Will he give us that guarantee first of all, that the Second Reading will not come earlier than a month from now?
Will he further take into account—although the Prime Minister may dismiss it, as he did just now, the Prime Minister's breach of faith of his own word is for him to consider—that many of us

here and outside consider that the Government have not a scrap of a mandate from the country to introduce this Bill, and that therefore the honour of the House is involved in ensuring that we have the fullest possible opportunities for debate? Our first demand is that we should have a full period between the publication of the Bill and the mass of unprecedented documents and the Second Reading debate. Could we have that as our first undertaking from the Leader of the House?

Mr. Whitelaw: Mr. Whitelaw rose—

Mr. Tebbit: On a point of order. Can a demand extending over several minutes be a business question?

Mr. Speaker: That is a matter for me and not for the hon. Member.

Mr. Whitelaw: On the first point, about the documents, I am glad that the hon. Gentleman recognises that the Government has, as they promised, provided the documents required. On his second point, I am grateful for what he said about the decision to move a Motion to have the Committee stage on the Floor of the House. On his third point, I have said that I am prepared to listen to representations and to have discussions through the usual channels. I am not prepared to give any undertakings one way or another until I have had those discussions.
If I am prepared to have discussions and hear representations, that is a reasonable point of view. I do not think that it is reasonable, on the other hand, to enter into discussion and hear representations on the basis of demands. I am prepared to have perfectly fair and open discussions, but I am not prepared to give in to demands of that sort. As for the position of this House, I am entitled to remind the hon. Gentleman, since he has raised the matter, that the question of the principle of Britain joining the European Communities was passed in this House by a majority of 112.

Sir D. Renton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the surprising thing about this Bill is not only its brevity but the fact that its terms are nothing like so far reaching as might have been expected in the circumstances? Will he ensure that we do not delay the Second Reading for too long, so that we can then get


down to the detailed discussion which will undoubtedly be required in Committee?

Mr. Whitelaw: I note what my right hon. and learned Friend has said. It is fair to point out that, I have heard all sorts of speculations about the length of the Bill—including the contention of some hon. Members that a Bill of one or two Clauses would be sufficient. This particular Bill deals expressly with all the matters which have to be dealt with before our accession to the Community, or shortly afterwards. That it certainly does, and I stand by that fact. I will certainly note what my right hon. and learned Friend has said.

Mr. Lawson: Before the Government become too set in their thinking about local government reform in Scotland, will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that Scottish Members at least have an opportunity to debate the proposals in this Measure?

Mr. Whitelaw: I will certainly look into what the hon. Gentleman has said and discuss the matter with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: With regard to the European Communities Bill, while there may be a constitutional case against delegated legislation, which was made more than 50 years ago by Lord Hewart in his book, "The New Despotism", would not my right hon. Friend agree that there is nothing in the Bill which is not supported by ample precedent in other Bills which have come before the House?

Mr. Whitelaw: I believe that to be so. I will certainly stick to what I said to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton).

Mr. Dalyell: When is the Rothschild Report to be debated?

Mr. Whitelaw: Not next week.

Dame Irene Ward: On what day next week may we expect a statement from the Secretary of State for Employment on his massive retraining scheme, which is of great importance to those who are unemployed and want to get on with retraining?

Mr. Whitelaw: I hope that it will be next week but I cannot tell my hon. Friend which day.

Mr. Harold Wilson: In view of the danger of confusion due to an earlier answer by the right hon. Gentleman, compounded by a question from one of his hon. Friends, may I ask whether he is aware that, when he refers to the vote of the House on 28th October, whatever view one may take about the terms of entry, there are two ways of legislating? One would be to follow the normal practice of the House and to have a full legislative procedure on everything that becomes new law, including the rights of our courts and the rights of this House, and the other is what is in the Bill. Secondly, would the right hon. Gentleman, having heard his hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck)—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—I should have said the hon. Member for Chelmsforrd (Mr. St. John-Stevas)—

Mr. St. John-Stevas: I am very grateful to be mentioned at all by the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Wilson: I am grateful to him for asking the question, though he asked it with his usual capacity for creating confusion on clear issues.
Does the Leader of the House not understand that it is not a question of whether delegated legislation has been accepted by this House, but that all delegated legislation in the past has been introduced under clear and specific powers of British legislation.
The issue here is that the Government are proposing by a single Clause—by a stroke of the pen—to provide that the delegation is not to this House but to people, who are not under the control of this House to make British statute law what has been drafted not only in an alien language but in an alien code of law and to make it the law of Britain.

Mr. Whitelaw: The point seems perfectly clear to me—[Interruption.]—and all these matters will, no doubt, be discussed in the months ahead. I believe that this Bill is absolutely correct, that it is absolutely constitutional and that it follows absolutely, naturally and properly as a consequence of the decision in principle to join the E.E.C.

Mr. Crouch: Referring to the general question of the Government providing the necessary documents on time, may I ask my right hon. Friend if he is yet in a position to say how it was that the James Report was not available in such a manner?

Mr. Whitelaw: I have made further inquiries into the position. There is, according to precedent, no requirement that supplies of non-parliamentary publications should be made available to the House, and the Report of the James Committee of course came into this category. Nevertheless, I appreciate the importance of the general point that documents of substantial interest to the House should be made available in sufficient quantities within an appropriate time. I am accordingly making the necessary arrangements with all Government Departments and with the Vote Office.

Mr. Alfred Morris: Reverting to the important question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan), may I ask the Leader of the House if he is aware that many of my hon. Friends who are serving on the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill are in a considerable procedural difficulty? I accept that this is not a matter for Mr. Speaker. However, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to look carefully at the point my hon. Friend raised so that we can get out of the difficult procedural wrangle in which we are involved?
May we be assured that there will be no question of the Government using the guillotine on the European Communities Bill?

Mr. Whitelaw: The answer to the first part is that I must be careful in view of Mr. Speaker's earlier Ruling. Nor must I transgress Rulings given by the Chairman of a Standing Committee. However, I have noted the hon. Gentleman's remarks.
The answer to the second part is that we must see how we get on. I never expect to take such action, because I imagine that the House always wishes to discuss legislation properly, fully and carefully and not, of course, in any way to seek to delay it unreasonably.

Mr. Adley: In view of the forthcoming document on retraining, the problems

of some of the development areas and the importance of the tourist industry to those areas, may I ask my right hon. Friend for an assurance that at some stage we shall have a debate on tourism?

Mr. Whitelaw: I have noted my hon. Friend's suggestion and I know the importance which many hon. Members attach to tourism, but I regret that I cannot find time for the subject to be debated next week.

Mr. Peart: Regarding what my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) said about the need for time before the introduction of the European Communities Bill, may I, too, express the hope that the Government will not rush it? The point has already been made about the difficulty being faced by hon. Members in a Standing Committee upstairs. Without going into the details of the matter, may I inform the right hon. Gentleman that some of the legislation which is contained in the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill will be affected by the European Communities Bill? This is causing considerable confusion in Committee upstairs—it is really confusion on the part of the Government—and, without referring to the specific Clauses that are involved, may I ask the Leader of the House to look into this matter carefully?

Mr. Whitelaw: Certainly, but I did not understand that there was any confusion on the part of the Government. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that I will look into the matter. I repeat that I am very willing, as is my duty, to enter into proper and reasonable discussions through the usual channels and to receive representations from any part of the House about the timing and various other matters relating to the handling of the European Communities Bill.

Mr. Marten: As there are in the Treaty of Accession some important points which should be examined carefully by this House, and as those same points are not mentioned in the European Communities Bill, may I ask my right hon. Friend if he will provide an opportunity next week for us to debate the Treaty of Accession?

Mr. Whitelaw: I am afraid that I cannot offer time for such a debate next week.

Mr. Jay: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider that the European Communities Bill detracts or does not detract from the constitutional principle that no British Parliament can bind its successors?

Mr. Whitelaw: I think I should be careful in pronouncing on matters like that. In any event, I am sure that they can properly be argued when we discuss the Bill in the near future. [Interruption.] I remind hon. Gentlemen opposite that I am dealing with the business for next week.

Dr. Dickson Mabon: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that if, through the usual channel, he acceeds to the request of my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) that the European Communities Bill should be delayed for a month, there need be no parliamentary hiatus because there is plenty of other business waiting to be dealt with?
Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) on the question of the reform of local government in Scotland was most disappointing. Does he appreciate that the Secretary of State for Scotland has written to many of us saying that after his statement on 22nd December he had written to the Leader of the House pointing out that he wanted there to be a debate of this kind and asking him to consult him about it? Will he ensure that we have at least a one-day debate on this subject soon?

Mr. Whitelaw: I can best answer the first part of that question by reminding the hon. Gentleman that I said that I would enter into discussions about the handling and timing of the European Communities Bill. I did not commit myself when replying to the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) about having a delay of a month.
The answer to the second part is that while I cannot promise a debate in the immediate future, I realise the importance which Scottish hon. Members attach to the subject, and I will certainly look into the matter.

Mr. Spriggs: Has the Leader of the House seen Early-Day Motion No. 146 about obscene television programmes?

Will time be found very soon for a debate of this Motion?
[That this House deplores the lowering moral standards of television presentations in this country; and calls upon the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications to take appropriate action with a view to reversing this trend.]

Mr. Whitelaw: I am afraid that I cannot provide time in the very near future for such a debate, though I appreciate the importance that many hon. Members attach to the subject. In this instance it is important for us in this House to preserve the principle that the governing bodies of the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. are responsible for the programmes, and no doubt they will have noted the terms of the Motion.

Mr. Urwin: As the nation is heavily involved in what may prove to be the most disastrous industrial dispute since 1926, is it not the duty of the Leader of the House to provide at least one day for the House to debate this vital subject? If he cannot promise to do that, will he at least try to ensure that his colleagues who bear a heavy responsibility in this matter depart from the rigid stance they have taken so far and encourage the National Coal Board to make an improved offer to the miners in order to settle this dispute?

Mr. Whitelaw: There was a full day's debate recently, and I am afraid that I could not promise one for next week. I can, however, undertake that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment will keep the House fully informed of any developments that there may be.

Mr. Eadie: Further to that question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. Urwin), may I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he is aware that the lack of any mention of this issue was a significant omission from his statement about the business of the House for next week? He seems to have failed to comprehend that 280,000 people in the mining industry are out on strike. Will he make a statement on behalf of the Government? If not, is his silence indicative of the fact that it is the policy of Her Majesty's Government to try to starve the miners into submission?

Mr. Whitelaw: No such implication can be taken from my statement announcing the business for next week, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman appreciates that. I have said, and quite properly, what I must say in these circumstances, which is that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment will come to the House if he has any developments to report—[Interruption.]—and will make a statement. Whatever I may or may not have announced as the business for next week, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman knows that I appreciate the circumstances of this matter as well as they are appreciated by anyone in this House.

Mr. Shore: Reverting to the European Communities Bill, and having noted what the right hon. Gentleman said about the constitutional aspect, I want to ask him, first, whether he is satisfied that so short a Bill is a proper way in which to treat the matters involved, and, secondly, whether he thinks that we shall, in the Bill, have sufficient opportunity to run over all the very serious matters which have arisen in the negotiations and were not even concluded at the time of the vote on 28th October? Will he reflect upon this? If he does change his mind, I can assure him that the House will be quite ready to see an entirely different and much longer Bill.

Mr. Whitelaw: I cannot believe that it would be sensible for the House or any of its Members to judge every Bill simply on its length, taking the view that the longer the Bill the better it must be. That would be a dangerous way in which to judge any Bills or any documents in our national life. I believe that the Bill expressly but concisely deals with all the matters which have to be dealt with before our accession to the E.E.C. or shortly afterwards. I believe that this is an appropriate way of doing it and I have no doubt that when we come to the Bill there will be ample opportunities to discuss the issues involved.

Several hon. Members: Several hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I cannot let business questions go on indefinitely. I will allow a few more.

Mr. McBride: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a cardinal difference between the two Housing Finance

Bills now in Committee? The Housing (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Bill is in charge of the Secretary of State for Scotland, who has executive responsibility for housing in Scotland, whereas Welsh interests are being frustrated in the Housing Finance Bill for England and Wales in that the Government team is being led by the Minister for Housing and Construction. We feel that the Principality's interest would be better served by there being a separate Bill for Wales in charge of the Secretary of State for Wales, who has complete executive responsibility for housing in Wales.

Mr. Whitelaw: The problem of these Bills and the way they are being dealt with is well known to the House. English and Welsh Measures are usually dealt with together, but Scotland, because of its different legal system, has different Bills. That Is the procedure which is being followed in this case, as it was under previous Administrations. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction is representing Welsh interests very well indeed on the Housing Finance Bill.

Mr. Booth: The right lion. Gentleman has referred to the Joint Committee of the two Houses which is to consider the question of the control of Parliament over delegated legislation. Does he acknowledge that the principal reason for setting up the Committee was the concern of a number of Members of both Houses that we have not adequate control over existing delegated legislation? Since the European Communities Bill contains a Clause which will gravely reduce control of the House over delegated legislation, I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that that provision should not be considered by the House until the Joint Committee has reported and the House has taken a decision upon its recommendation.

Mr. Whitelaw: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's particular interest in this subject. The Joint Committee was set up in response to a unanimous recommendation of the Select Committee on Procedure. As he says, it was set up because of problems of dealing with subordinate legislation under existing Statutes. I repeat what I said earlier—that clearly our accession to the European Communities will add to this problem and that these additional matters should rightly also be examined by the Joint


Committee. But I do not think that it would be necessary to hold back discussion of the Bill until that Committee has reported. I hope that the Joint Committee will have regard to these problems. It may make some recommendations dealing with problems which already existed and separate recommendations for dealing with the new problems. But that will be for the Joint Committee itself to decide.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: As the Conservative manifesto at the last General Election indicated support for legislation to end discrimination against women, will the right hon. Gentleman now consider allowing Government time for debating the later stages of the Bill to this end which will be introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) tomorrow?

Mr. Whitelaw: I appreciate the importance of the subject and the point made by the hon. Lady, but I must stick to the principle which I have always held since I took my present office. I am afraid that I cannot give Government time for any Private Members' Bills of any sort or kind, no matter how meritorious they may be.

Mr. Richard: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Written Question No. 97 today asked the Minister for Posts and Telecommunications to make a statement on postal charges and services? Is he further aware that on the tapes there is an indication that the Minister intends to make a statement to the House this afternoon? Is the Minister going to make such a statement? If he is not, how can the Leader of the House possibly justify parliamentary trickery of this sort when, on a most important issue, one of his colleagues is not prepared to come here to make an oral statement as he should do?

Mr. Whitelaw: No parliamentary trickery is involved. A Written Answer has been given, and that is a perfectly proper procedure. I have always said that one has to decide in these matters which are Questions which should have oral statements in reply and which should not.

Mr. Richard: Shame.

Mr. Whitelaw: Before the hon. and learned Gentleman says that, he should look at the precedents rather carefully.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sorry, but we must now move on. The Clerk will now—

Mr. John Mendelson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. This is the first occasion when hon. Members on both sides can express to the Leader of the House their shock and amazement at the constitutional abrogation which the Government are already beginning to practice by the nature of the Bill they have introduced concerning the European Communities. Should you not on this occasion allow every hon. Member who rises in his place to put a question?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Mendelson: May I be allowed to put my point of order?

Mr. Speaker: Order. There can be no point of order about my decision to stop questioning at business time. I have today allowed twice the usual time. Many right hon. and hon. Members have put questions and there have been five or six interjections from the Opposition Front Bench. This is not a matter for order. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to query my conduct he must do it in a different way.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I ask the House to help me. I am given complete discretion by the House in this matter and I allowed business questions to go on today for 36 minutes. When I decide to end it, it is intolerable to me to have my decision questioned, and that is what the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson) is doing.

Mr. Ashton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Is this a different point of order?

Mr. Ashton: Yes. It is with regard to the precedents of the House, Mr. Speaker. Week after week, because our Front Bench members are so enthusiastic to do their duty, many of us cannot get called in the time you make available. Your predecessor used to allow every


back bencher who wanted to ask a business question to do so. I say with great respect that one of the things disturbing us since you succeeded him is that you do not follow that practice.

Mr. Speaker: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman is being wholly accurate. I do my best, and 36 minutes is a long time for Question. If the House should wish me to allow all business questions to be called, it must do so by a new Standing Order.

Mr. Molloy: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have had a vast amount of correspondence on the subject of the Common Market. There are ordinary folk in Great Britain who, rightly or wrongly, think that their nation's birthright is to be sold. Whilst we have the highest regard for your position and for

your Rulings, may I ask you to consider that what we have been discussing this afternoon about the European Communities Bill is one of the greatest issues which has ever come before the House of Commons in that it might change the nature of this House and do away with rights we now enjoy?

Mr. Speaker: I have great sympathy with the hon. Gentleman. But I remind him that the Leader of the House was asked to delay the Second Reading debate for some time. Many questions today were put which were really very much more appropriate for the Second Reading debate. I have to make a judgment in these matters. I am sorry that a number of hon. Members have not been able to put their business questions, but we must have regard to other business of the House.

Orders of the Day — GAS BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

4.10 p.m.

The Minister for Industry (Sir John Eden): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Since about 1960 the gas industry has been subject to two major changes, first the move away from coal carbonisation in favour of oil refining, and then the change to natural gas. But during that time the statutory position has remained relatively static, with only some enlargement of the functions of the Gas Council brought about by the 1965 Act.
Following the discoveries of natural gas, the reassessment of the industry's future on the basis of assumptions about the amount of gas that would be available, and the taking of the major decisions on the physical development of the industry, legislation to change the industry's structure was planned and even introduced. But the General Election intervened and that Bill, which was related to judgments made fairly early on in the development of North Sea gas, was lost. This has provided an opportunity for further consideration, and the result is the Bill which is now before us.
The structure proposed in the previous Bill, although a substantial move towards putting the main responsibility for the direction of the industry in the hands of the Gas Council, went only part of the way. In some quarters it was indeed seen as a half-way house, with full statutory centralisation to follow later. Whether or not it was so regarded, that structure had undoubted weaknesses. In particular it preserved statutory area boards but made them subject to direction on any matter by the Gas Council and also took away from them any statutory responsibility for their own financial performance; moreover, the central direction of the industry was to be provided by a body which contained a majority of area members.
Our re-consideration has had to take account of the fact that the new structure brought about by any Bill introduced at this time will not become effective before about the end of this year at the earliest.

By then conversion to natural gas will be more than half way through; virtual completion of the whole programme is likely in four or rive years from now. It is therefore no longer sensible to think in terms of an interim Measure, and it is desirable in legislating now to provide for the sort of industry we can expect to see as we run up into the 1980s.
Obviously there are some unknowns, and new pressures and developments will influence the organisational pattern of the industry. Therefore, this Bill deliberately does not attempt to provide a precise blueprint which is fixed both in outline and in detail. In particular, the Bill does not attempt to define the distribution of management functions between the centre and the subsidiary branches of the organisation. That would be far too rigid. It is more sensible to proceed gradually, by enabling moves away from the present structure and the present distribution of responsibilities to take place as and to the extent that they become, in management's eyes, necessary for the efficient conduct of the industry.
But the industry must have direction and control, and never more so than at a time of rapid development and change. We have therefore decided to put full statutory responsibility for the industry in the hands of a single body, the British Gas Corporation. The statutory area boards will be abolished, and all the assets of the industry will vest in the corporation.
Under the Bill the British Gas Corporation is not to be an entirely new body; Clause 1 provides for the Gas Council to be re-named as from an appointed day and for its composition to be changed. This method of proceeding has been chosen partly for technical reasons but also to mark the fact that the proposed new structure is not a radical and revolutionary departure from what has been happening hitherto, but a development of it. The appointments of existing members of the Gas Council come to an end immediately before the appointed day, but they may be reappointed. Although I do not have in mind now a full list of potential members of the corporation, I am able to say that it will be the intention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, if Parliament passes this Bill in substantially its present form,


to appoint the present chairman, deputy chairman and full-time members of the Gas Council to the equivalent positions on the new new corporation. This strong group of five at the head of the present industry is well placed to supervise all necessary planning for the change-over. I can also say that a strong group of part-time members on the corporation will be desirable.
It is not possible to be categoric at this stage about the exact timing of the appointed day. That must depend on a number of factors, including the advice the members-designate of the corporation, when appointed, given me as to the time they need to make their plans, in accordance with the duty laid on them by paragraph 2 of Schedule 1. But 1st January, 1973, is the date we have in mind at present. The Bill provides that the date must not be later than 1st July, 1973; this time limit arises solely for technical reasons concerned with the rating provisions, which are contained in Clause 34, Schedule 5 and parts of Schedule 6.
There has been a tendency in some quarters to describe this decision as one to introduce total centralisation of the gas industry. But this is to mistake the nature of the proposals. As hon. Members who have studied the history of organisational changes within the nationalised industries will know, there are many possible ways in which a single statutory body can organise its own subordinate management structure. It is possible to try to concentrate all power at the centre, or alternatively local organisations can be set up and given a very free rein. The essential point of the reorganisation proposed by the Bill is that it will be for the corporation in the first instance to decide what balance to strike.
This must be right—from several points of view. First, it puts the responsibility for taking decisions on structure in the hands of those directly responsible for the success of the industry. Secondly, it makes possible a more precise distinction than could ever be made in a Statute between those matters which need to be co-ordinated at the centre and those which are best left for local initiative and responsibility. Thirdly, and very importantly, it enables changes to be made in

the light of experience or changing circumstances. Under a single statutory body such changes can be made quickly and relatively easily, and can therefore be made, where appropriate, step by step. In this respect they are in complete contrast to changes in structure brought about by Acts of Parliament.
I cannot say what organisation the corporation will adopt, or what matters it will reserve for central decision and what matters it will devolve to area managements. This will be a decision for the Corporation. I have no doubt that on a number of matters closely related to the industry's strategy for the natural gas era and to the financial health of the industry as a whole, a greater degree of central decision-making will be found appropriate. Making this possible is one of the prime objects of the Bill. But equally I have no doubt that the corporation will not make the mistake of trying to run the whole industry from London. Indeed the very nature of the industry, with 13 million customers for whom local service must be provided, would make this impossible. A strong regional organisation, sensitive to the needs of consumers in each area, will certainly be necessary; and it is reasonable to expect that initially it will reproduce the existing area pattern based on the areas of the present 12 area boards.
But while it is right that the corporation, as being responsible for the industry as a whole, should be primarily responsible for determining its internal management structure, it is right also that Parliament should be informed of any substantial changes made by the corporation and of the reasons for them; and right also that the Government should have a reserve power to intervene if they consider that any new organisation introduced or proposed to be introduced by the corporation is seriously defective. Clause 4 therefore provides for the corporation to review its organisation from time to time, with a first review initiated immediately after the corporation is set up, and to report the conclusions of any such review to the Secretary of State, who is to lay the report before Parliament; and it provides also that the Secretary of State may, after considering any such reports, give directions to the corporation about its organisation.
While the corporation will be generally free to organise its affairs as it thinks fit, the Bill does place one restriction upon it, in that Clause 4(5) prevents it from creating area organisations which straddle the boundaries of Scotland and Wales. This means that in any regional organisation which it sets up it must establish a region, or more than one region, to cover Scotland, and similarly for Wales. This would not prevent it from managing some functions, such as research, on a national basis, but it would prevent it from deciding to establish an area to cover, say, the West Midlands and Wales and to manage that area from Birmingham.

Mr. Arthur Palmer: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that, in spite of what he has said about the limitations on regions, the practical effect of the Bill is that Scotland will lose its autonomous gas boards?

Sir J. Eden: As I said earlier, statutory gas boards will cease to exist, and in their place will be strong regional organisations, which must be preserved in Scotland and Wales.
The abolition of area boards and the creation of a single statutory authority responsible for the industry require changes in the consumer consultative machinery. This is dealt with in Clauses 9 to 13. With ultimate responsibility resting at the centre, it will be necessary for the consumer to have a voice at the centre to enable consultation to take place on major issues which will be decided nationally.
In considering what form these provisions should take, I have taken into account the valuable and timely report of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries, which was published on 19th October. I have decided that the need for national consultation should be met by a statutory body, with statutory powers, and have rejected as inadequate the alternative of a voluntary body, which was what the previous Government had in mind.
Clause 9 therefore sets up a National Gas Consultative Council, which will include as members the chairmen of regional councils but will also include other members appointed by the Secretary

of State, within a limit of 30 members, not counting the national chairman.
Under Clause 10 the national council will have duties similar to those of the existing area gas consultative councils, but on a national scale. It will have the right of notifying its conclusions on any matter to the corporation, and of making representations to the Secretary of State; and the Secretary of State will have the power to give directions to the corporation arising out of its representations.
The creation of a national council will not remove the need for consultation on local matters, and the Bill provides also for local consultative machinery. The existing area councils will become known as regional councils and will continue to be appointed by the Secretary of State. They will continue to be able to consider any matter affecting the interests of gas consumers in their areas, including tariffs, and will be able to notify their conclusions to the corporation, and, if dissatisfied, to make representations to the national council. Where the national council takes up any such complaint, these representations can lead ultimately to the exercise of the Secretary of State's power to give directions to the corporation arising out of consultative council representations.
Since the House last debated the state of the gas industry in July, 1970, further important developments have taken place. These are set out in the Gas Council's booklet "Natural Gas on Target". Although hon. Members will have had the opportunity to study its contents, there are one or two points which I think ought to be picked out for this debate. What three or four years ago may have seemed to some as an over-optimistic assessment of the Gas Council's sales prospects have in the event been fully vindicated.
The programme to absorb the very large quantities of natural gas is, as the title of the booklet indicates, "on target". During 1971 the average daily quantity of natural gas received by the Gas Council was about 1,800 million cubic feet with a maximum daily take of 3,000 million cubic feet towards the end of the year.
Secondly, the conversion of the industry to natural gas continues to progress. All boards are now receiving natural gas, and currently some 90 per cent. of


total demand is being met by natural gas, including both natural gas supplied direct and that which is used to make town's gas.
The programme of converting consumers' appliances has also moved on apace since July, 1970, when I told the House that about 15 per cent. of domestice consumers had had their appliances converted. By the end of March, as the table on page 10 of the booklet shows, some 45 per cent. of consumers will have had their conversions completed—three times as many. I know—and, of course, regret—that in the massive conversion operation there have been cases where mistakes have been made and individuals have suffered.

Mr. Thomas Cox: A great many.

Sir J. Eden: It varies from area to area. I know also that area boards are doing all they can to guard against their repetition, to learn from the experience they have gained and to minimise the disruption to the householder.
The industry is still very much in the middle of the changeover to natural gas, and heavy expenditure will continue to be necessary for some years yet. For the four years up to March, 1975, the Gas Council estimates that the industry's capital requirements will amount to just over £1,200 million, of which by far the largest items are £531 million on bulk transmission and distribution and £371 million on conversion to natural gas. The industry estimates that a little under half of this will be met from internal resources, leaving about £620 million to be financed by borrowing.
It is likely that most of this external borrowing will be from the National Loans Fund, but Clause 21 continues, as a contingency provision against a possible future change in policy, the power to issue British Gas Stock, and Clause 17(2)(b) and 17(3)(c) continue the power to borrow in foreign currency.
The industry's present borrowing limits are set by the Gas and Electricity Act, 1968, and the Gas (Borrowing Powers) Order, 1970. At the moment they stand under the order at £2,100 million, but a further order could raise them to £2,400 million. To facilitate comparisons I propose that in future all British Gas Stock

should be counted against the total limit on borrowing.
Taking into account the industry's outstanding borrowings at 31st March last, its expected requirement for external finance up to March, 1975, and the change of definition which I have just mentioned, we arrive at a borrowing requirement by March, 1975, of £2,480 million as indicated in the table on page 15 of the booklet. The Bill therefore sets, in Clause 19(1), an immediate borrowing ceiling of £2,500 million. Taking account of the change of definition, this is actually a lower ceiling than could now be prescribed by order under the 1968 Act.
Although the industry's self-financing ratio should improve substantially over the next few years, it is by no means certain that it will be fully self-financing in the years after March, 1975. I have therefore provided in the Bill for the industry's borrowing limits to be raised by order, when necessary, to a ceiling of £2,700 million.
A Bill setting up a single statutory body for the gas industry is inevitably a substantial piece of legislation, and we have taken the opportunity to bring together in a single Bill most of the relevant statutory provisions affecting the industry. This has enabled us to propose the repeal of the 1948 Gas Act, the 1960 Gas Act, and references to gas in some other Acts. The relevant provisions, adapted to the situation of a single statutory authority and modernised where appropriate, are reproduced in this Bill.
The only substantial section of existing gas legislation which is not to be dealt with in this way is Part II of the 1965 Gas Act, which is a relatively self-contained code of provisions dealing with underground gas storage. I am sure that this method of proceeding, bringing together in a single Bill the great majority of the provisions relating to the gas industry, will be welcomed both by the House and by the industry.
I have deliberately not gone through the Bill Clause by Clause. If hon. Members are interested in any particular points to which I omit to make reference, I know that my hon. Friend will do his best to deal with them when he comes to wind up this evening. But there are a number of provisions which I think the House will find it helpful to have explained at the beginning of this debate.
Clause 2 sets out the corporation's primary duty, which is to develop and maintain an efficient, co-ordinated and economical system of gas supply for Great Britain, just as the area boards have a corresponding duty at present in respect of their own areas.
Clause 2 goes on, in subsections (2) and (3), to state the corporation's principal powers. Unlike the previous Government's Bill—and I very much welcome the right hon. Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. Harold Lever) as an old protagonist in these matters—these do not include powers to encourage or permit the gas industry to go into the oil business. As we made abundantly clear when that Bill was before the House, this would be totally inappropriate. But I recognise that the corporation may find crude oil in the course of looking for natural gas. If it does so, it will have the power to sell it, after treatment if necessary, or to use it for manufacturing gas, but, apart from this, it will not have the power to refine it.
I am also proposing to clarify, in Clause 2(4), the extent to which the corporation may search for and produce natural gas abroad. Present legislation leaves that question somewhat vague. I am proposing that it should be able to do so, but only with the consent of the Secretary of State. The intention is that consent should be given only where the operation is directed towards fulfilling its primary duty of supplying gas to Great Britain. I do not envisage authorising the corporation to explore for gas abroad with a view to supplying foreign markets. I also envisage that consent will be given only where the proposed method of operation is by way of a joint venture with a private sector company.
Clause 5 deals with—

Mr. Cox: Before the Minister leaves Clause 4, could he clarify one matter? Will he have the right under the Clause to call on the gas boards to change their policy in regard to complaints about gas conversion? I have been told by the Minister and his hon. Friend in reply to previous questions that they have no responsibility on this aspect.

Sir J. Eden: This will be a matter for the British Gas Corporation. It is very much in its interests when it comes into

operation, as it is now in the interests of the area boards, to ensure that the whole operation goes forward as smoothly as possible. This is not a matter of direction by the Government.

Mr. Cox: Mr. Cox rose—

Sir J. Eden: I am sorry, but I do not want to trespass on the time of the House more than is necessary. No doubt the hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity to speak later in the debate, and I am sure that my hon. Friend who is to reply will listen carefully to what he says.
Clause 5 deals with the control of capital expenditure. Those hon. Members who took part with me in examining the previous Bill in Standing Committee E will be glad to see that the wording used here embodies the fruits of their careful consideration of this subject. In particular they will note the omission of any reference to "measures of re-organisation and works of development".
Clause 7 contains the normal power for giving general directions in the national interest. It also contains the more specific power, similar to that contained in, for example, Section 27 of the Transport Act, 1962, and Section 7 of the Coal Industry Act, 1971, to direct the corporation to discontinue activities and to dispose of assets. The Government regard this as an appropriate general power to have in reserve in relation to the corporation, in case the corporation, in the exercise of the wide powers conferred on it by Clause 2(2) and 2(3), strays too far from the primary purpose for which it is set up namely, the business of gas supply. As I said in a Written Answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) on 18th January, the taking of this power does not indicate any present intention of making use of it. Steps are being taken, as described in that answer, to create conditions in which a healthy private sector will develop naturally in gas appliance retailing and in gas contracting, but these are not dependent on statutory powers.
Clause 16 enables the Secretary of State to direct the corporation to pay to him any part of its profit from year to year which appears to him to be surplus to the corporation's requirements. Although similar powers exist elsewhere, in, for example, Section 42(8) of the


Transport Act, 1968, the circumstances here are a little different. The gas industry is engaged not only in the public utility activity of gas supply but also in the exploration for and production of natural gas. This activity, which is undertaken largely on the basis of fixed interest advances from the National Loans Fund, is a highly speculative business of a type not usually financed by fixed interest loans. We cannot tell how successful the corporation will be in future in the finding of natural gas and perhaps oil, but in this kind of activity there is the possibility that really large finds might give the industry exceptionally high profits. In such circumstances it would not necessarily be right for these profits to accrue wholly to the industry. It might well be appropriate that some payment, over and above the normal receipt of a fixed rate of return, should be made to the Government, which are in effect the 100 per cent. shareholder and lender of last resort.
It is to meet the possibility of this sort of situation of exceptional profitability that Clause 16 has been inserted in the Bill. I would emphasise as strongly as I can that it will not be used to require the corporation to pay over any and every surplus. The industry has heavy financial burdens in the shape of obsolete plant and conversion expenditure, and it has reserves which are tiny in relation to its assets. The Government fully recognise the need to discharge these financial burdens and to build up proper reserves, and the new powers will certainly not be used to prevent this being done.
At this point I think I should say a word or two about any changes in the relationship between the industry and other producers and suppliers of gas.
When considering the whole question of the marketing and disposal of gas throughout the country there are four major interests that have to be taken into account in determining the right statutory framework. First, of course, there is the gas industry itself with its rights and obligations for supplying gas. Secondly, there are the producers, particularly the producers of natural gas from the exceptionally hazardous waters of the North Sea, who rightly need to secure a proper reward for the substantial risks they are taking. Thirdly, there are the consumers,

including those in industry to whom gas is of particular importance. Finally, there are the Government with their inevitable responsibility for the development of such an important national asset, their ultimate stewardship for a very sizeable amount of public investment and their responsibilities for national fuel policy.
I have naturally considered very carefully whether the Statutes as they stand provide the right balance between the legitimate interests of these various parties or whether a shift of emphasis one way or another is needed. There are several possible steps which could be taken and hon. Members will no doubt raise some in debate. I have looked in particular to see whether the extent of the nationalised gas industry's market powers in gas supply and distribution should be modified. My examination has covered such questions as the disposal of by-product gas, the use of the gas industry's distribution system by others, the ways in which imported gas can be supplied and the disposal of natural gas from the United Kingdom Continental Shelf. Clearly, I cannot now go into all the possibilities that have been studied and the reasons for rejecting those that have not been included. I shall, however, refer here to one change from the existing statutory provisions and one case where I wish to explain particularly why a change has not been made.
The new provision is in Clause 29(4) which was born out of our discussions on the previous Government's Bill. It provides for appeals to the Secretary of State where a producer of by-product gas is refused permission by the corporation to supply it to a consumer direct. In modern conditions it is unreasonable that the gas industry should have the last word on whether a by-product gas producer can sell his gas privately, since the protection given by Clause 29(5), of being able to require the corporation to buy the gas at a reasonable price, may well be ineffective, because by-product gas will often be incompatible with the natural gas in the gas industry's supply system. Although I have no reason to believe that the corporation would in practice ever adopt a dog-in-the-manger attitude, I think that a by-product gas producer seeking the right to supply direct should have the assurance of being able to take his case to the Secretary of State.
The other provisions to which I wish to draw attention are those governing the disposal of natural gas from the Continental Shelf, as contained in the previous Conservative Government's Continental Shelf Act, 1964. That Act and the system of licensing established under it have served us well. Very large reserves of natural gas have been discovered; and their development and use are proceeding at a speed which has few parallels elsewhere in the world.
The Continental Shelf Act is sometimes spoken of as though it gave the gas industry a complete monopoly of the purchase of natural gas, but this is not altogether the case. The Act does give the industry what amounts to "first refusal" for purchasing natural gas, but the Act also provides for three ways in which the Secretary of State can consent to gas being disposed of to consumers other than through the gas industry: he must give his consent if the gas is to be used for industrial non-fuel purposes such as chemical processing. He may give his consent if the gas is to be used by the producer and its subsidiaries themselves; and, thirdly, he may also give his consent to the producer selling the gas for other industrial uses if it has first been offered to the gas industry at a reasonable price but the gas industry is unwilling to buy it.
These provisions clearly reflect the aim to provide a sensible balance between the interests and responsibilities of Government, consumers, the gas supply industry and the producers, and the powers contained in them are an integral part of the framework of the 1964 Act. I believe that that framework can still serve the country best and the Bill does not, therefore, change the present position with respect to the disposal of natural gas. But I wish to make it clear that the Secretary of State, in view of the importance of encouraging the search for, and production of, natural gas, will be prepared to use his discretionary powers in suitable cases to permit direct supplies to industrial consumers. Any application to the Secretary of State would, of course, have to be considered on its merits. In coming to a decision, he would have to be satisfied that the conditions laid down in the Statute were met, and he would take into account any implications for fuel policy. But, where appropriate, this

discretionary power will be brought into use.
Of the remaining provisions of the Bill there are only three to which I must at the outset make brief reference. The first relates to safety. The House will recollect, from the answer I gave to the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) on 25th October last year, that the rectification of weaknesses in the present law is necessary as one of several inter-related measures being taken to increase gas safety. It will complement the voluntary action being taken by gas installers and also the regulations on installation work, to be made under Section 67 of the present Act, on which outside interests are at present being consulted. Clause 31 does this by providing for regulations empowering authorised officials of the corporation to enter premises and inspect, and, as far as necessary, cut off part or all of any gas installation. Except in emergency, these powers will be exercisable only by consent or under a magistrate's warrant, and there will be an appeal procedure against cut-off. These provisions follow closely those in the previous Government's Bill, which, I think, were generally agreed to be right and necessary.
The second is compensation to members of the area boards or the Gas Council, or to employees of the industry or the gas consultative councils, who lose office or whose salaries or pensions rights are diminished as a result of the Bill. It seems unlikely that the reorganisation will lead to any widespread loss of employment or demotion of individuals. It is expected that the corporation will be able to agree a mutually acceptable scale of compensation with the relatively few employees who may be affected, but the Secretary of State would have power under Clause 37 to lay down terms of compensation in regulations if this proved necessary.
Finally, Clause 38 enables contributions to be paid to compensate the industry for incurring expenditure, under the scheme announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 23rd November, 1971, to promote employment in the next two years. The gas industry has agreed to bring forward orders for steel pipe and to advance certain work on transmission and distribution mains. The total value of the


investment to be brought forward is about £20 million. The Government are grateful for this co-operation, and the intention is that they should be able to recompense the industry for the additional expenditure it incurs as a result of bringing forward these schemes. It is not yet possible to calculate precisely the additional expenditure in relation to the schemes so far agreed, but it is expected to be about £2½ million. The ceiling of £5 million on expenditure by the Government, which this Clause provides, is intended both to cover these schemes and to provide a reasonable margin for covering also any further schemes that may be agreed between the gas industry and the Government.

Mr. Edward Taylor: Concerning the point about giving extra expenditure to create employment, will my hon. Friend clarify whether the Bill will go towards bringing in a British price for gas, or shall we still have the position that Scottish consumers pay about 25 per cent. more than the average in England and Wales?

Sir J. Eden: That will be a matter for determination by the British Gas Corporation when it comes into existence.
The statutory structure for the gas industry, which this Bill proposes to replace, has lasted with very little change since 1949. But under that structure, which allotted the principal role to autonomous area boards, the industry has had a remarkable record of achievement, both in human and material terms.
Since 1948 it had first the task of welding together more than 1,000 gas supply undertakings of varying size and efficiency into 12 integrated businesses.
Later, in the 1950s, it had the task of breaking free from the stranglehold of a relatively static production technique—coal carbonisation—which, combined with rising raw material costs, seemed likely to spell its extinction. Then came the successful development and rapid introduction on a very large scale of naphtha reforming, which revolutionised the industry's prospects.
Finally, there was the challenge of natural gas, and with it now come further structural and statutory changes which will give to the industry as a whole that flexibility which area boards have always enjoyed, and which has proved

so beneficial, to alter and adapt their internal organisation as current and future needs may dictate.
Throughout all this there has been, as the House will recognise, one strong connecting thread, as apparent today as ever it was at any time in the past. There is to be found at all levels of the industry, among area boards and at the Gas Council, a sense of team spirit and pride of achievement which will see it through this necessarily difficult period of transition in which it is now to be engaged. It is that which makes me so confident that the framework provided by this Bill will lead to an increasingly efficient and successful industry. But I know that I speak for all who work in it when I say that they do not see that as an end in itself. Their objective is the relentless pursuit of even better standards of service to their customers. In this they will be greatly helped by the proposals I have outlined. It is the industry's customers, therefore, who will be the real beneficiaries of this Bill, and I commend it to the House.

4.47 p.m.

Mr. Harold Lever: It is a matter for regret that when dealing with the restructuring of this great publicly-owned industry we should unnecessarily turn the occasion into a party political controversy. The responsibility, however, lies on the Minister.
When I had responsibility for this industry before the General Election, we, too, recognised that the structure of the industry required change to take into account the historic changes which were occurring, not only because of the advent of natural gas, which merely accentuated the process of consolidating the national character of the industry which has gone on continuously since the original fragmented, mainly municipally-owned enterprises had been taken over, but because the old methods, which were mainly prevalent when we took over, of making gas from coal had changed to making gas from oil. Later, of course, and increasingly, natural gas came in to play its part.
We introduced a Bill which purported to make these structural changes or to move in the direction of the structural changes which would reflect the changed


conditions in the industry. At that time the Minister, who was then leading for the Opposition, welcomed the Bill with one exception. He said that it would get through without any difficulty whatever if we removed from it the power of the Gas Council, as it then was, to process oil which it might discover in the course of its search for natural gas. It was obvious that the hon. Gentleman and his friends thought it would be a great misfortune if the Gas Council struck oil, and it was therefore terribly important that it should strike oil only, as it were, by accident in its search for natural gas.
I have not had the hon. Gentleman's political education of attending Conservative Party conferences year after year. He said that he would have accepted the style of reconstruction which we proposed without any political argument were it not for the fact that we had this minor dispute on this question. I will not go into the merits of that minor dispute. I am not complaining that in the time which has elapsed we have moved further in our thinking about what the industry requires. I have no doubt that as time went on we would have found it necessary to move even further. In a sense, our proposals were an intermediate stage to arrive at what the hon. Gentleman wants to arrive at over the coming years with this Bill.
I would have been able to say, even if he had left out the power, in the form I had it in, to deal with such oil as the gas industry may strike in the course of its search for natural gas, or, rather, even if he had left it in in the form I find it here—which hon. Members who trouble to read the convolutions of the Clause will see is really an expression of Conservative party-political paranoia rather than a serious attempt to limit the commonsense power I proposed to take—that I did not think that there would be any difference in the power I proposed to take and the power that the Minister proposes to take on what he then alleged was a controversial point. I should not have complained if the hon. Gentleman had introduced a measure of statutory political verbiage in the Clause about the search for gas. I would have welcomed the Bill and said that we should put our heads together and do what is so rarely done; that is, think of ways in which

these inevitably great natural assets like the gas industry can best be run in the interests of the country, whatever party is in power.

Mr. Frank Tomney: Perhaps it is a little late at this stage for this suggestion, but this country has not placed any of its newly discovered oilfields to strategic reserve, as has been done in the United States—for obvious reasons. If in its searches for natural gas the Gas Corporation should discover sources of natural oil, why should these not be put to national strategic reserve? If something is discovered by a corporation in the national interest, there is no reason why that should not be done.

Mr. Lever: That automatically follows. When the Gas Council discovers natural gas, it does not propose to use up all of it the next day. It has a very careful plan to deal with these reserves over many years.

Mr. Tomney: I was speaking of oil.

Mr. Lever: The same would apply for oil. This is not an appropriate occasion for me to discuss the way in which strategic oil reserves may be held and whether they are safer in underground tanks in this country or have to be fought for in the middle of a war in the North Sea. This raises problems about which I would not be terribly dogmatic, but I see what my hon. Friend has in mind.
The difficulty about the Bill is that it is not merely the minor adjustment in wording on the search for natural gas and oil, but that the Bill at many points shows that the Conservative Government are driven by political pressures to display a hostility to aspects of publicly-owned industry which is totally irrelevant, very inimical to the status of these industries and bad for the morale of those who work in them, and it quite unnecessarily raises political friction in the discussion of these industries' affairs.
I shall advise my colleagues at the outset to divide against the Second Reading as an act of protest at this Government's unnecessarily introducing matters with which I shall deal later as briefly as I can—although most are for the Committee stage. Wantonly and unnecessarily the Government are seeking to drag our publicly-owned industries into the field of


political controversy. I do not mind political controversy if it is relevant, but I do not like irrelevant political controversy.
Curiously enough, because the gas industry has been so successful and is a special industry which, for historical reasons, has always attracted an immense vocational loyalty amongst those engaged in it, and because the Department has grown up over a long time with the people handling the industry and had a remarkable record of tact, understanding and ability in the old Ministry of Fuel and Power in dealing with the gas industry, and because of the nature of this service industry and the enthusiasm and skill of those in it, with their remarkable and special vocational attachment—perhaps an interesting hangover from the Victorian origins of the industry—all this has led to a very successful industry. We shall be spared in the case of this publicly owned industry with its remarkable record of achievement of recent years, thank goodness, what in other industries are the inevitable nostalgic incantations to which we are treated about the mistake of nationalisation and the unwisdom of anything being publicly owned and the incompetence, waste, flabbiness and lethargy which results from this action. Here we are spared that, for there are very few Conservative Members who could say that about this industry in the light of its recent achievements.
If the Minister had kept out of the Bill some of the matters I am about to raise I would have been able to welcome it. So far as it has a tendency to centralisation, there is no principle on centralisation and decentralisation. Some matters are inevitably centralised when we are dealing with a national gas grid. Some things are better decentralised. I agree with the Minister that there is no reason why we should not continue to decentralise what is done better by encouraging local initiative. Here I pay tribute to the members of the area boards. They are men of understanding and ability running a great enterprise in each of the areas. I am sure that in the new set-up decentralisation to men of such ability is required, first to keep attracting that level of ability and, second, to keep the same level of enthusiasm and local skill in the management of our affairs.
One thing troubles me. We must not lose the attention to regional needs which the old system promoted. As the area boards are run by men who are of considerable ability and devotion to their industry but none the less have great local feeling, it is tremendously important that they should be in a position to take into account the special regional needs.
While welcoming for technical reasons this degree of change in the structure in many places, I reserve the right to listen to what my hon. Friends from Scotland and Wales have to say about the particular impact of the Bill on Scotland and Wales. I want to hear the case made. The Government have not made any case for depriving Scotland of a greater degree of autonomy than is provided for in the Bill. For my part, I should like to say that regional needs of a nationalised industry not merely require attention to the special services required according to the location, but require that our national industry be used, in its pricing policy, to stimulate and support a policy of greater attention to bringing up the industrial progress of our less developed areas.
I shall not elaborate on it today, but I have advanced the view that the Government ought to seek, as far as possible, to create a financial structure in the hard-hit high unemployment regions which would produce for them the kind of advantages that a change in the exchange rate compared with the rest of the country would bring about. As a change in the exchange rate is not practicable, whenever possible I want to use financial means such as trying to provide them with cheaper money than in other parts of the country, whereas our pricing sometimes gives them dearer money. We ought to consider in our pricing policy in the regions the question of supplying the regions of high unemployment with low energy costs by deliberate act intended to stimulate employment in those areas and to encourage them to develop.

Mr. Edward Taylor: Those are very encouraging words. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that under the previous Government the extra price for gas for Scotland over the average in England and Wales went up from 14 per cent. to the present 25 per cent., and that Scottish consumers today pay 25 per cent. more for gas than the average price in England


and Wales? Would it not be enough to have just a British price?

Mr. Lever: That might be one gain. We would gain if we brought down interest rates to the level which applies in England. I favour bringing them down below the English rate. At present, they are above. As the Scottish price is above the British price, I see great virtue in bringing it down to the British price and perhaps even lower.
The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward Taylor) said that this was the case under the Labour Government. It is the case under the present Government, but with the difference that unemployment is very much higher than it was under the Labour Government. The energetic efforts made under the Labour Government to keep down unemployment and to develop employment opportunities are being withdrawn and neglected by the present Government. I agree that under the present Government there is an even more urgent case for action of this kind to assist Scotland. If this Government carry on with their present demand management policies, Scotland may need even more drastic help than the modest help for which the hon. Gentleman asks.

Mr. William Molloy: Does not my right hon. Friend's argument illustrate the importance of publicly-owned industries where actions of the sort that he is advocating can be taken? Is not this important fact a matter which right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite should point out to Tory Party conferences? When we are in grave danger and have I million unemployed, it is only the publicly-owned industries to which we can turn for assistance.

Mr. Lever: I believe that it is the duty of Governments of both parties to make a success of both the privately-owned sector and the publicly-owned sector. I do not assert that the public sector exclusively can assist in these matters. But it has unique opportunities precisely because the industries in the public sector are publicly owned, and when they are appropriate and well-run I concede that my hon. Friend's point is justified.
These publicly-owned industries offer unique opportunities to the Government,

and they are reflected in the Bill. The Government cannot go to private industry in the same way and say, "Advance your capital projects, and we will pay the cost." They cannot do that, and they cannot interfere with pricing policy on a regional basis in the way that the hon. Member for Cathcart, suggests.

Mr. John Biffen: In view of the right hon. Gentleman's answer to the point put to him by his hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy), does he think that these unique opportunities for energy industries in the public sector to apply differential charges will be affected by our membership of the Treaty of Paris?

Mr. Lever: I take it that the hon. Gentleman means the Treaty of Rome—

Mr. Biffen: I mean the Paris Treaty. The right hon. Gentleman will no doubt bear in mind that on iron and steel—

Mr. Lever: I cannot allow this debate to be turned into an extra day for the Second Reading of a Bill which is to come before the House very shortly. I am sure that the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) will ask for ample time in which to discuss it and that during the Committee stage of that Bill no one will be unduly impetuous in rushing through the Clauses. We shall have plenty of time in which to discuss them during the days and nights ahead of us, and I feel that today hon. Members should be allowed to discuss the matter which is before us. These bogey-men must be resisted. We are dealing with an innocent Bill, and, even if the hon. Gentleman disagrees with the innocent suggestion to help his hon. Friend the Member for Cathcart, he should not try to score this kind of point in the middle of the debate. It reflects the hon. Gentleman's strange obsessions with the Common Market—

Mr. Biffen: Mr. Biffen rose—

Mr. Lever: The hon. Gentleman must contain himself. This is not a vote of confidence on the Conservative Government and the Common Market. It is not even a vote of confidence on the gas industry. It is just a protest which is being raised by right hon. and hon. Members on this side of the House, and I want to explain why it is being made.
On the question of ministerial and departmental control, no doubt we shall have greater and more detailed discussions in Committee. I have no wish to take up time on it now since I know that a number of my hon. Friends are hoping to intervene.
However, I must register here and now our protest about the hiving off provisions in Clause 7. What is the reason for including them? The Minister for Industry seemed to be ashamed of his offspring. He gave a very hasty explanation. He said that if, for some reason, in its enthusiasm the corporation happened to over-extend itself in areas where it was found not to be necessary, it could be divested of it. If his Department has anything like the ordinary co-operative arrangement and relationship with the industry that it had in my day, these matters would be discussed in advance between the Gas Council and the Minister.
The Minister was engaging in what I call statutory oratory to please some of the less enlightened of his supporters. I do not begrudge him that, were it not for the fact that it damages the industry in the sense that it expresses in statutory from that the Minister will take powers to over-ride the commercial discretion of the boards. He has no business to do so, even if he has obsessions on the subject, unless he believes that he will need the statutory power to gratify those obsessions. Even making the empathetic assumption that I have the same obsessions as the hon. Gentleman about this, I would not produce a Clause of this kind unless I had a specific anxiety that such a horrible danger was threatening of some acquisition of this kind.
It is clear from the way that this matter was introduced that the Minister has no ground for apprehension. He has no reason to believe that any of the Gas Council's present acquisitions should be divested. Notwithstanding its offensiveness in terms of a threat to the Gas Council's commercial integrity and power of decision, the Minister has put it in for no better reason than to please the more benighted members of his party. I object to it strongly.
I also object to it because it is a tragedy for this country that when Conservative Governments come to power the impression gets abroad among our great

publicly-owned industries that from then on they are in the presence of a Government which wish that they did not exist, which do not sympathise with their objectives and which do not trust or rely upon them to behave with the responsibility that they have amply demonstrated in the past.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Nicholas Ridley): After all that waffle, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will tell the House why his Government put an identical Clause in the Iron and Steel Acts of 1951 and 1967?

Mr. Lever: The hon. Gentleman refers to identical provisions in different industries and in totally different circumstances from the present. The fact is that this is a novelty introduced into this Bill. It was not in any other Bill affecting this industry, and the Goverment have no business to bring it in now, unless it is to gratify someone's hopes.

Mr. Peter Rost: Very good reasons.

Mr. Lever: I said that the less enlightended members of the Conservative Party would be gratified. The Minister says that they will do nothing. The hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Rost) notes with glee this useless and offensive Clause which is introduced into the Bill.

Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: rose—

Mr. Lever: While I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) will have an opportunity to intervene in due course, if he wishes to defend himself now I am happy to give him an opportunity to do so.

Mr. Skeet: It should be to the benefit of the taxpayer if the Gas Council, as it is now, were taken out of the Continental Shelf. Money would not have to be provided. All that the council would have to do would be to pay a reasonable price and secure a first option on the gas produced by others. What is the good of having it out there?

Mr. Lever: I am undoing all the good that the Minister is doing with his more benighted followers who do not comprehend his purpose. If the Minister had the smallest intention of withdrawing the


Gas Council from the Continental Shelf to gratify hon. Gentlemen there would be some substance in the Clause and in their joy. Hon. Gentlemen will find that their glee has no foundation.
The hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East this morning took occasion in Committee to express his distaste for any form of public ownership and called for proper management of publicly-owned assets. When this Government, perfectly sensibly, yielded to the request of the Steel Corporation to adjust its balance sheet on a perfectly professional basis I had to defend the Minister from the attacks of the hon. Member who said that it was "cooking the books" and "financial cheating". In accordance with the conventions of ministerial emollience the Minister thanked his hon. Friend for his contribution, although he did not express any particular gratitude for my defence on the charges made against him.

Mr. Rost: I am reluctant to intervene, but I have been provoked to do so. Would the right hon. Gentleman not agree that this Clause could be justified if the gas industry was not prepared to relinquish certain assets which it would be in the national interest for it to relinquish, as well as in the interests of the industry as a whole?

Mr. Lever: There are no assets that require to be hived off in the national interest. The Minister has power without using subsection (2) if it is in the national interest. Subsection (1) gives him the power to do so if it is in the national interest, while subsection (2) gives him the power when it is in the political interests of the Conservative Party. There is a sharp distinction between the two which the Minister rightly emphasises in the drafting of the Bill.

Mr. Gerald Kaufman: It would be interesting if my right hon. Friend could elicit from the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Rost) whether he could justify to his electors a Clause for hiving off part of the Rolls-Royce organisation which saved the workers in his constituency.

Mr. Lever: That would be interesting. I am tempted to pursue all these matters but we do not want to stray too far. The tinder-Secretary should know better,

seeking to introduce irrelevant and lengthy arguments showing that Bills dealing with the steel industry and transport were somewhat different. We are faced with a silly and offensive Clause, and we could not let the Bill go through without registering our view.
The only claim that could honestly be put up in supporting this is to say that it is not in the interests of efficiency that some subsidiary activities in certain circumstances should be carried out by the gas board; that we must be careful not to make it too diversified by having what may seem marginally irrelevant activities. It is interesting to see the propaganda character of the hiving-off exercise because all we are talking about is probably a half of 1 per cent., or a quarter, or one-tenth of 1 per cent., of the assets of this great industry. We are focusing our attention on what is peanuts in relation to the totality of the industry.
There are lots of vast, private corporations that have subsidiaries whose activities are not strictly and directly necessary for the main purposes of these vast private corporations. It is left to the board to decide whether on balance an advantage accrues. If it is left to the board of a private industry, why should it not be left to the board of this great industry, especially as it has a record which compares favourably with almost any private enterprise that can be cited and since it has a Department in constant touch with it representing the public interest—whichever Government is in power—which is among the most experienced, tactful and intelligent of Departments.
Why should we have the notion that this is bad for the publicly-owned industry yet all right in private industry? Is the Minister trying to convert some of my hon. Friends to the proposition that since it is required for efficiency we ought to go combing through the companies owned by great private enterprises to see whether it is in the national interest that they are hived-off to focus the minds of the directors on the main purposes of the business? In the case of publicly-owned industry it has a special usefulness in helping to keep the directors in constant touch with entrepreneurial activity touching on the central business.
It keeps them more in touch with private business if they are partners in getting natural gas and oil and engaged in other similar activities. It keeps them in close contact with some pretty sharp entrepreneurial operators, and it would be a great stimulus for them to be able to take part in such things. I do not believe the Minister dare or would interfere with any existing activities; there is certainly no reason to do so and he has not pretended that there is. Why on earth this Clause should be in the Bill I do not know?
I object to Clause 16, which takes off the surplus or gives the power to do so. The reason given by the Minister is nonsense. He says that we are engaging in a speculative venture in a natural gas and this should not be financed on fixed interest and so if there is a bumper profit there should be a bumper dividend. This is nonsense. It that were the sole activity of the corporation there might be some case for the argument; but it is not just searching for natural gas. It is supplying the gas services of the country in circumstances in which there is not the slightest doubt that it would service the loan interest.
What matters is not the nature of some of its activities but whether the loan made by the Government is speculative—not whether some of its activities are inevitably speculative. Since the Government have absolute blue chip, guaranteed servicing of the money they have put into the industry they have no business to be talking about bumper profits. If the industry does well with gas discovery, the good fortune in commercial activities should normally be reflected in the improvement of its capacity and capital and, above all, in the prices charged to consumers. There is no such relevant speculative activity, with the Gas Council paying the interest on its loans.
This verbiage conceals an intention to exact a tax from the gas industry by taking into the general exchequer what could have been given to gas consumers through a reduction of prices, better services and equipment. We should protest against this most strongly because there is no justification for it. I cannot believe that the Committee will allow this. We will certainly examine the details of the Bill carefully because of the spirit

revealed by the two particularly obnoxious Clauses, one showing such a rapacious desire—subject to the consent of the Treasury forsooth! They shall not take anything out of the industry except with the Treasury's consent. I can think of no Department in which I could have more satisfaction in working than the Treasury but the notion of my old Department resisting the desire to draw from this industry some surplus profit and put it into the general tax fund is one which must, I think, represent a humourous touch. The restriction on a Minister's powers was that he had to persuade the Treasury that he could get hold of the money en route to its despatch to the Treasury. This and Clause 7 are objectionable Clauses. Clause 7 particularly is disrespectful to the great service rendered in the past by the Minister's own Department and by the able and devoted men who have served this industry. To include Clause 7(2) for the sake of some party political enjoyment is wrong.
For these reasons, although I will welcome and support every constructive aspect of the Bill—I am not stick-in-the-mud about the Minister's forward look at changing the structure to meet the needs of the times—I must recommend my hon. Friends to vote against the Bill. But I am anxious to make it clear, especially to those who work in the gas industry, that this is by no means a reflection on them. It is really a reflection on the Government's unnecessarily making a subject of political controversy out of an industry in which we should all be concentrating on encouraging further advance in the brilliant performance that the able men in charge of it have already produced to the advantage of our country.

5.21 p.m.

Sir Henry d'Avigdor-Goldsmid: The right hon. Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. Harold Lever) has made, in his characteristic style, one of those orations with which we were more familiar when he sat on the back benches. Then, certainly, the question arose on our side of the House whether he would ever sit down. This, I am afraid, since he was dealing with a Measure with which he is seemingly in full agreement, he indulged in today. The clarion call with which he urged his hon.
Friends to join him in the Lobby to vote against this Bill had all the bravado and awe-inspiring clamour of a china-shop attacking a bull. Frankly, it was not worthy of him or of the high reputation which he holds in our minds. This is to all intents and purposes a non-political Bill, and his desperate efforts to find a political element in it struck me as very lame.
Having sat as Chairman of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries, which dealt with some aspects of the gas industry, I would rather leave the field to those who know less about it. I should particularly like to call attention to Clauses 9 to 13 and to Schedule 3, which deal with the new system of consultative councils. Consumer relations in the industry were the subject of the Select Committee's last report, Command 514, released on 19th October.
I am surprised that the two opening speeches today have not mentioned the one man who is, in general estimation, responsible for the growth and development of the gas industry. I mean the retiring Chairman, Sir Henry Jones. Anyone who has come into contact with him must realise that his personality has done as much to shape the industry as any governmental committee or body.

Mr. Lever: I endorse every word of that. It seemed to me invidious to name one man, but since the hon. Member has done so I can only agree with every word he said. The only time that Sir Henry disagreed with my Government I agreed with Sir Henry.

Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid: I count that as a virtue in the right hon. Gentleman.
Although this paper, Command 514, was released on 19th October, it was seen by the officials of the Ministry concerned a good deal earlier. That was due to the intervention of the recess. The object was so that they could take into account the Committee's conclusions in drafting their own legislations. When we agreed to make this paper available, we hoped that some of our recommendations would be accepted, but I am rather disappointed with the results.
The right hon. Member for Cheetham said that this Government had a hostile attitude to the nationalised industries. He

is just repeating a piece of cant that came out in the Labour handbook of about 1955 and has probably been repeated since. My complaint is that the nationalised industries are going increasingly out of control—by this Government or anyone else. I shall have something to say about this later, although not in this speech.
When one considers that the Post Office, when it became a corporation, passed from the control of the Comptroller and Auditor General simply to the control of the Nationalised Industries Committee, which has two Clerks as against the Comptroller's staff of 500, one begins to see that there is a pretty good smell of liberty in the air for these great bodies. I am not saying that they use it wrongly, but under this Government this opportunity has been increasingly given to them.
The recommendations of my Committee on the subject of consumer relations were not complicated. We took and stressed the point that the public relations of the nationalised industries are their own concern, and that it was not the duty of the consumer councils to step between them and the consumers. But it must remain clear that the consumer councils are the watchdogs of the consumers.
We thought that we could best make that point clear by entirely separating for the future the consumer councils from the industry itself. That meant that the consumer councils should have separate offices, should appoint their own staff and. I believe, should report separately and not via the regional boards.
We further said that their expenses should be paid not by the industry but by the Minister. After all, the expenses of these councils are modest, but they should not depend on going to the gas board or any other authority for their money. They should go straight to the Minister, so that there would be no element of patronage in their relations with the industry in which their duty was to act as watchdogs for the consumer.
I am sorry to say that the Minister has in Schedule 3, among the supplementary provisions, put on the corporation the responsibility for paying the chairman of the National Council and the chairmen of the regional councils. Will the Minister allow the consultative bodies to engage


their own experts? That was one of our recommendations.
Paragraph 1(2) says that the corporation may pay various things
 … to the other members of those Councils, and to the members of committees and to individuals acting as local representatives".
Paragraph 3 says:
the National Council … may, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State as to numbers, appoint such officers as appear to them to be requisite for the proper discharge of their functions".
Would that include an expert adviser, without whose advice much of the work of these councils is likely to be frustrated?
The appointment of a national consultative council was recommended by us, although it was not recommended by Sir Henry Jones in his evidence. He saw no need for it. However, I believe that this appointment is right because, unlike other industries, the local boards have not been in the habit of holding informal meetings with each other.
I am somewhat perturbed over the question of tariffs, to which the right hon. Member for Cheetham referred. Not all regional boards take more than a fraction of their supplies out of North Sea gas. For example, the Welsh Board said that out of 200 million therms it introduced only 15 per cent. of natural gas, whereas 3 per cent. came from the coke ovens of the B.S.C. and the N.C.B.
One would imagine that the industry in Wales would have benefited from the fact that most of its gas is locally produced so that the cost of transportation and so on is less, resulting in gas being attractive to industry in the area. Does the Minister envisage having local tariffs perhaps on the lines suggested by the right hon. Gentleman, though certainly taking advantage of such local benefits as are obtained from local production?
I still wish to stress the importance that my Committee attached to the independence of the local consultative councils. As long as these bodies are mixed up in the public estimation with the officials of these industries they will not make direct appeal to the public. Local consultative councils are not recognised by the public as their watchdogs, mainly because they are regarded as part of the bureaucracy that works these great industries.
It is a waste of time having this elaborate consultative machinery if the public do not know about it and if it is not freely available. Unless something is done to show the independence of these councils, this elaborate provision will mean little and many people who give up an enormous amount of their time free of charge to work on these local consultative councils will find their effort frustrated.
I hope the Minister will reconsider this matter and perhaps on Report say that the expense attaching to the salaries of the national chairman and regional board chairmen might better be defrayed by his Department. I cannot give a precise figure, but, rather than costing £1 million, the overall sum might be in the region of £½ million.
If the Minister is not willing to do this, then I fear that these consultative councils and all the work that these people do for them will be regarded as part of the tentacles of the octupus of this great industry, a feeling which makes the consumer think he has no redress. Hon. Members receive a large number of complaints, but they are nearly always about failings in judgment rather than being of great consequence. However, consumers feel that they have no redress.
If we could get it across that these councils are absolutely independent of the Gas Corporation—are free to make representations to the Minister and public announcements when they feel that that is right; and, of course, if they are able to have specialist advisers to help them—then the Bill will achieve all the more. In any event, I believe that it will do a useful job, and I therefore support it.

5.35 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Palmer: I had intended to deal with the consumer question and follow the remarks of the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid), but in view of the shortness of time for this debate I fear that I shall have to deprive the House of the benefit of those remarks and come straight to what I regard as an extraordinary feature of the Bill, the question of structure.
Hon. Members who have followed the history of nationalisation in the United Kingdom will appreciate that the fashion


in organisational forms changes from time to time. This is particularly true in the public utilities of electricity and gas. In the late 'fifties the Conservatives broke down the Labour Government's 1947 settlement for electricity on the grounds that the industry was over-centralised, and they gave virtual autonomy to the area boards and the C.E.G.B.
The justification given by the Conservative Ministers of the time, Mr. Aubrey Jones, was that as the system of regionalisation, rather than nationalisation, had worked well for gas, it should be applied to electricity. All sorts of arguments were adduced at that time by the Conservatives against the over-centralisation of nationalised industries. They said that centralisation was bureaucratic, that it was often London-centred and that there was no competition and effective comparison in financial management between one part of the country and another.
It was clear that the Minister still had the memory of those arguments in mind when he served with me in Committee upstairs prior to the last General Election when we considered the Labour Government's Electricity Bill. He was at that time hostile to the C.E.G.B.—this is an effective comparison in the circumstances—because of its size and remoteness from the consumer. That was his argument, and, as he knows, I thought there was a great deal in it.
Now, however, the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues produce a Measure which can properly be described as a centraliser's dream of bliss. It is a bed of roses for a bureaucrat. There are to be regional organisations—one cannot run a business of this size without some sort of regional organisation—not by right of Statute but simply as a matter of administrative and managerial convenience.
The hon. Gentleman expressed the hope that the British Gas Corporation would not locate its offices in London. Does he think they will be established at Bacton? I doubt it. They will probably be in London.
As I pointed out in an intervention, Scotland is to lose its autonomous gas boards. This is astonishing when one considers the lengths to which the Conservative Government went in the 1950s to break Scottish electricity away from the national system. I said then that

they were giving home rule to kilowatt hours. Now they are going to take home rule away from the therms.
I know that it is always difficult to strike a sound balance between centralisation and decentralisation. But the House has a right to know the reason and influences which have brought about the change in Conservative thinking from the former concentration on decentralisation to this new devotion to centralisation. Is it that the Minister, with his obsession about what he regards as the over-commercial activities of nationalised boards in that they are running something on the side at a profit which he thinks should go to private enterprise, has not the time for general creative thinking about the main problems of these great industries? Or is it that he is overborne by the existing Gas Council and those members of it who want to dominate the country's fuel and power scene?
I hope that no one is going to use the argument that because technically the industry uses natural gas which comes in at one or two terminal points on the East coast there must be a centralised administrative organisation throughout the country. In principle it is wrong that the gas industry which is, or should be, a competitive retailer should be able at the same time to monopolise the wholesale supply of a natural fuel. For instance, it is wrong to deny the use of that fuel by price or other mechanisms to the electricity supply industry. Electricity is now being driven because of the obvious reluctance of the Gas Council to let it buy natural gas for industrial purposes—in power stations, for example—to consider North Sea exploration on its own. It will be interesting to see whether the Government allow the C.E.G.B. to go in for North Sea gas exploration.
I have always believed that there should be a State marketing agency for natural gas which would be able to hold the balance fairly between the fuel-using industries. In such circumstances the gas boards, if they had been retained, would have bought it commercially like anyone else. The gas industry is a distributive enterprise and an essential public service; it is more than an industry in the ordinary sense. In this way it would have been kept close to the consumer.
Many other people than myself are shocked by what is proposed in the way of centralisation. For example, Mr. Kelf Cohen, a disillusioned civil servant who is no friend of the Labour Party, wrote last August in the Daily Telegraph, a pillar of Conservatism, an article headed, "The Great Gas Monopoly". Discussing the Government's reorganisation plans he concluded:
It was the determination of the Prime Minister which brought an end to restrictive practices which stifled competition and bore heavily on the consumer. It is strange that his Government should now be promoting a Bill which will strengthen a monopoly and make 13 million consumers more helpless than ever.
I endorse what my right hon. Friend said about Clause 15. It is a quite wrong Clause. I just could not believe that such a Clause could exist in a piece of legislation presented to this House. It gives the Government the right to claw back to the Treasury any trading surpluses which the industry might earn. This is the kind of thing that backward local authorities used to do in the old days of municipal gas and electricity undertakings. Any surplus had to go back to relieve the rates and was not used therefore for further commercial development. Now the same sort of thing is produced by a Government which proclaim adherence to commercial principles and good commercial management. It is also against the principle of self-financing which the Tory Party upheld at one time. The gas industry may be forced on to the market to borrow expensively, even though, as a result of its own enterprise, it has achieved a surplus. This is an appalling Clause. It should not be in the Bill at all. I cannot believe that the Government will proceed with it in the Committee.

5.46 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: I should like to follow the right hon. Member for Manchester, Cheetharn (Mr. Harold Lever), who once again was much excited, although I thought that his thumping of the Dispatch Box was in inverse ratio to the strength of his argument—we might find the strength of the argument in Committee—but I want now to follow the line brought out by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid) and discuss the situation of the consumers. The Bill does not propose a particularly satis

factory method but it may be that the Minister has some other points to make on this aspect.
My hon. Friend is taking power to appoint a National Council, which will have
such other persons as the Secretary of State may from time to time appoint after consultation with such bodies as he thinks fit.
I hope, for example, that he will make it clear that the bodies which will have the right to expect representation will be the T.U.C., the C.B.I. and local government, because without their having a voice on the National Council I do not think it will give us what we want.
I hope, also, that we will have more than what I might call "statutory women". Here is an opportunity for the Government to show their belief in the literature we issued before the General Election and in the principles of the Private Member's Bill to be presented tomorrow. Women are certainly among the largest consumers of gas, and surely they have a right to representation on the National Council.
The second point is the independence of the consultative councils. I am disturbed by the wording of Schedule 3 which says that these councils may occupy
… such office accommodation and equipment as the Corporation consider requisite for the proper discharge of their functions".
It is not the business of the corporation to decide what premises the National Consultative Council or regional bodies ought to occupy. I hope the Minister will change this position because otherwise he will be perpetuating the feeling that many people have had until fairly recently that the consultative machinery has been no more than a charade.
The Select Committee did great work in highlighting this situation. The old Ministry of Fuel and Power did not put many teeth into the consultative bodies in the gas and electricity industries. I served for 11 years on an area electricity consultative council. We rebelled on one occasion and referred a tariff increase to the Prices and Incomes Board. We did not get very far.

Mr. Ridley: My hon. Friend did not complete his quotation. He will see that it continues:
… or as the Secretary of State may direct.


So the standard of accommodation provided is not in the hands of the Gas Corporation.

Mr. Finsberg: With great respect, my hon. Friend does not help the case at all. I want the consultative councils to have the right to say what accommodation they want, not to be told by the nationalised body, "You may have this", or to have to go to my right hon. Friend. If that is happening, it is not an independent body. That is why I stress that it must have independent premises.
I hope that the national body will be given finance to carry out proper research. The Post Office Users National Council, on which I still have the honour to serve, today issued a 66-page report on the Post Office tariff proposals. We have not tamely acquiesced in them but have rejected many. I do not know what my right hon. Friend the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, exercising his final right, will do, but that is evidence of an independently-minded body which has carried out paid research. It does not occupy premises within the Post Office but has premises within the Ministry, and it is organisced to have proper consumer representation from all over the country. It is that sort of body which, if it has proper finance can carry out an independent survey of the needs and wishes of consumers.
It is clear that the Bill will have a Second Reading. We have not yet seen evidence of vast interest among Labour hon. Members, flocking into the Lobby to respond to the right hon. Member for Cheetham. We on this side know that it is a good Measure and shall back it. But, good Measure though it is, it requires improvement. I hope that, particularly on the questions of consultative machinery, my right hon. Friend will have a further look at the Bill and decide to do three things: first, to specify the bodies that they may expect to nominate; secondly, give finance to the National Gas Consultative Council to carry out its own research; thirdly, write out of the Bill the corporation's right to say what premises the council may have.

5.53 p.m.

Mr. Alex Eadie: Cracks are beginning to appear on the Government benches. The hon. Member for

Hampstead (Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg) made some criticism of the Bill and then sought to praise it. If the Minister assumes that the Bill will have an easy passage, he never made a bigger mistake. His Department is full of miscalculations, and if it thinks that the Bill will go through, that is one of its worst. It miscalculated over the miners' strike, and had better keep up its record. We shall examine the Bill closely in Committee.
The Government show a certain insensitivity over some aspects of the Bill, such as the blotting out of the Scottish board. Is the Minister aware of what is happening in his Department and his Government? Last week some of my hon. Friends from the Scottish Parliamentary Group met Ministers and were assured that there would be more decentralisation, more devolution of jobs, and so on. The Bill will not be welcomed in Scotland. The Government fail to understand that Scotland is not a region but a country. When the people of Scotland see the proposition that their gas board should disappear, the Government will have serious political problems in Scotland. The Minister made no case for the disappearance of the Scottish board.
It is a good job that people can read, despite some of the quips of Conservative Members. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. Harold Lever) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Palmer) showed that the Conservative Party always speaks with forked tongues. It is a different party when in Government. Vast political problems will arise unless the Government seriously re-examine the taking away of the Scottish board. The patience of the Scottish people with the Government, when we have 154,000 unemployed, is becoming exhausted. We shall not be able to tolerate much longer the Government's attitude and their prejudices, which mitigate against the Scottish people. The Minister will require to put a far better case.

Mr. W. E. Garrett: Does my hon. Friend agree that the absence of Scottish Conservative Members shows how indifferent they are to the problems of Scotland caused by the part of the Bill to which he refers?

Mr. Eadie: It is not for me to comment. The hon. Member for Glasgow,


Cathcart (Mr. Edward Taylor) was here, and there may be some reason why he had to go. He was not prepared to commit himself very much. He seemed to imply at times that if the price was right we should be prepared to sell our souls. The Scottish people are not prepared to do that.
It is wrong to suggest that the Bill is a nice little Measure. It is ridden with the Government's prejudices, as in the hiving-off Clause, Clause 7. I wish that some Conservative Members would show that they have read not only the Report of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries but the OFFICIAL REPORT of the proceedings on the Coal Industry Act, when we had a long debate on hiving-off. The Government received a trouncing so bad at times that even some Conservative Members could not support their Government. We see in this Bill that the Government have listened to what the Opposition said. The Government's proposition then was that there should be hiving-off without Parliament and the people having the right to decide. Indeed, no order was to be laid before Parliament. The Government could take a decision on hiving-off, and the people could go to Hell if they were opposed to it. Under this Bill, any hiving-off proposal must come before Parliament, which can debate it and decide whether the Government's proposal is good and just. I am glad that the Government have learnt some sense. Their whole philosophy on hiving-off is one of the most ridiculous things to come before Parliament. If nationalised industries are doing well and showing a profit, they say, "We'll hive off something." If those industries are not doing so well, they even talk sometimes about closing them down. Where is the logic and sense in that?
One thing for which we are grateful to the Government is that during their term of office nationalised industries have become respectable. The Government are staggering from the disaster to disaster. Unemployment is running away with them, and they do not know what to do. They appeal to private enterprise to help them with the 1 million unemployed, but private enterprise puts its fingers to its nose at them. The Government say, "What can we do? We will go to the nationalised industries, the industries under public ownership, over

which we have some control." So the Government go to the nationalised industries and offer them all the money they want so that they can provide more jobs. This is their only solution. Yet here they are, putting a proposition before the House about hiving-off.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Cheetham demolished Clause 16. For the Government to say that if the industry is doing well they will tax it is "conning" the consumer. We were told that the advent of North Sea gas would mean a bonanza for the consumer and that costs would go down. The Government are saying in the Bill that if the industry does well they will tax it and to hell with any advantages for the consumer.
This is a thoroughly bad Bill. The people of Scotland and of Wales will object to it, and when the people of England see the dogma and the prejudice within it their wrath will descend upon the Government.

6.1 p.m.

Mr. John Biffen: There is a certain attractiveness about Her Majesty's Opposition. The hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie) provides the passion and the right hon. Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. Harold Lever) provides the padding, making an effective balance. Nevertheless, as the hon. Member for Midlothian acknowledged, when the Coal Industry Bill was going through Committee it was the persuasive arguments of the liberally-minded Members on the Government back bench which were decisive in securing parliamentary sanction for hiving-off operations. That is a reminder that the most effective opposition does not necessarily derive from passion or padding.
The debate has been characterised by most helpful contributions from the hon. Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Palmer) and my hon. Friends the Member for Walsall, South (Sir H. d'AvigdorGoldsmid) and Hampstead (Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg). I should like to dwell upon both the points which they mentioned; namely, structural organisation and the rôle of the consumer.
The hon. Member for Bristol, Central was perfectly right in saying that we move through certain fashions in organisational size. Inasmuch as Parliament is


required to legislate upon certain industries, we have hit a point in time when the unitary structure has obtained favour. The hon. Gentleman was a little less than fair. There have been substantial changes in manufacturing technique which must have considerable consequences for the organisational structure of the gas industry.
I am anxious to ensure, and to receive a comment from my right hon. Friend upon his expectation and hope, that the Bill will not lead to excessive centralisation. Above all, there is real danger in a monopoly purchaser of the size of an industry whose borrowing powers have been referred to as between £25,000 million and £27,000 million.
At the time when we received the first intimation of the Bill, the right hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Gunter), who was then in office, said that the Bill would give to the Gas Council:
… responsibility for the main policy decisions of the industry, including its investment decisions."—[OFFICIAL. REPORT, 22nd May, 1968; Vol. 765, c. 549.]
That places tremendous purchasing power in the hands of a sole commercial organisation reinforced by the unitary structure to be implemented by the Bill and adds validity to the concern which many hon. Members on both sides of the House feel about the need for a competition policy.
The area boards fostered a degree of commercial competitive spirit. Although it is true that alterations in techniques of manufacture and distribution have mitigated that consideration, we should do well to acknowledge in any organisation the importance of marketing, and therefore to hope that initiatives in marketing would still be left at as decentralised a level as possible.
This has caused some concern among those who are interested in consumer representation. I will quote from the Gas World of 4th December, 1971, the anxieties that have been expressed by the West Midlands Gas Consultative Council:
Until now West Midlands Gas Board consumers have been sitting pretty.
Those are the words of the Gas World, not mine:
They enjoy the benefits of a highly successful Gas Board which sells the

cheapest gas in the country. However, should the British Gas Corporation seek to standardise gas prices …
This may interest the hon. Member for Midlothian:
 … they would be in for a shock—a possible increase in prices of about 15 per cent. … Mr. John Plant, of Stoke on Trent, asserted: If this Council never does anything else, the most important thing it can do for the customers is to ensure that they don't suffer and lose the benefits of the hard work which all associated with the gas industry in the West Midlands have put in over the past 20 years.'
I hope that my hon. Friend in winding up will allay these anxieties, and I look forward to hearing his comments.

Mr. Eadie: The hon. Gentleman realises, of course, that there are consultative councils in the coal industry.

Mr. Biffen: It is kind of the hon. Gentleman to remind me of something which he says I know, and I take notice of his generosity.
My second point is on consumer representation, on which most anxiety has been shown. I say, in all friendliness to the hon. Member for Midlothian, that this is an area in which we may get a success in the Committee stage. We achieved success before on hiving-off in the coal industry, and I think we may look for success here on consumer representation.
There is anxiety that the recommendations of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries shall be given more direct legislative form than appears from the Bill as drafted. The danger is that consumer consultative councils should be thought to be riding in the hip pocket of the industries they serve. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead said, this can be graphically illusrtated by the offices which they occupy. Schedule 3 raises all the doubts that were expressed by those who had the privilege to serve on the Select Committee under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South.
There is one other point I should like to mention on the question of fair competition within the industry. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) was the recipient of a statement widely welcomed on these benches, that in retailing and contracting the gas corporation would be required to present its


accounts in such a way as to make apparent the true costs of these activities. It was hoped that this would be the preliminary to a wider participation of the private sector in this particular practice.
I acknowledge the anxiety of the gas industry that it may be confronted with some unfair competition from the oil industry. There is a belief—I do not know how well founded—that many oil companies do cut-rate installations and then recover these essentially uneconomic installation costs by having fuel supply agreements that tie the person to buy over a certain period of time. This could be the kind of situation which might—I do not say it should—be referred to the Monopolies Commission to ensure there is parity of competition between these two providers of energy.
I will conclude on the question of the controversial Clause 16. A number of comments have been made on this provision and reflect a good deal of concern. I am quite certain that my right hon. Friend will interpret and execute this Clause in a most prudent fashion, and therefore my anxieties are nothing like those which have been expressed from the Opposition benches.
Anybody who is concerned about the degree of intimacy between Government and public corporation can only conclude that energy pricing policy has been considerably influenced by administrative decisions, and attempts have been made to try to persuade the British consuming public to express their preferences in ways which have been politically oriented rather than market oriented. My anxiety is lest the gas industry in its activities creates considerable commercial advantages which result in a large profit which it would then like to use to cut the price of gas and to increase its share of the supply of the United Kingdom energy market. I should like to feel that, if this were its policy, it would not find itself harassed and inhibited by the Government under the provisions of Clause 16 from pursuing what it believed to be a good commercial policy. No doubt these are points which my hon. Friend will argue are Committee rather than Second Reading matters.
Finally, I want to associate myself wholeheartedly with those who have paid tribute to those engaged in this industry, whose success story is one in which we

can all share. Since I was a member of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries, I should like to pay a personal tribute to Sir Henry Jones, whose reputation will long endure in the gas industry.

6.14 p.m.

Mr. W. E. Garrett: I intend to be brief in my remarks and I intend to resist making any jibes about the thinking of the two terrible twins, the junior Ministers in the Department, and their philosophy which somehow has percolated through into the Bill.
I speak with concern about certain Clauses in the Bill since they involve the welfare and livelihood of a considerable number of my constituents. The House should know that within my constituency I have the main offices of the Northern Gas Board, the headquarters of the Gas Research Council and also a craft training school for the industry. All employ a considerable number of people, ranging from highly qualified scientists and engineers to administrative workers and craftsmen. This is why, with certain reservations, I welcome the provisions in the Bill for the welfare, health and safety of all these employees.
Subsections (2) and (3) of Clause 3 make it clear that the proposed corporation must maintain the high standards imposed by the present boards on matters relating to training and education and also to matters of research, on which the Northern Gas Board and the Gas Research Council have a magnificent record which is not equalled by any other region in the country. Therefore, either today or in Committee I should like some assurance from the Minister that there will be no impeding of the research which is suitably important to the future of that industry.
On the negative side of Clause 3, I see no statement of intent on whether the labour force in the three establishments I have mentioned will be maintained at its present level. I hope that we shall have some assurance that it will be maintained. I would have preferred to have inserted in this Clause a clear assurance that there will be no redundancies arising from the proposed reorganisation. In fact, if the Minister could give an assurance that more jobs would be created, this would be a tonic not only to the gas industry but to the North-East in general,


which is reeling from the effects of high unemployment and daily announcements of further redundancies in other industries.
I am certain that there will have to be a close scrutiny of the principles embodied in Clause 35. Here it is stated that the Gas Corporation must commence consultation with trade unions or staff associations to establish new agreements for settling terms and conditions of employment. Why is such a Clause necessary when there is already in existence a number of good industrial agreements reached through negotiating machinery which has been built up over many years? Will the proposed new constitution mean that all those agreements will be scrapped, kept the same, or improved? If they are to be scrapped, this will mean the end of a very long period of harmonious relations which have existed between the trade unions and the negotiating committees associated with the industry.
Clause 35 undoubtedly has been inserted because of pressure by the same Minister who introduced the infamous Industrial Relations Bill—I have no doubt about that. I have equally no doubt that, behind it all, there is some aspect of these provisions which will further restrict, and possibly impede altogether, trade union activity in this industry. We shall probably be able to ferret this out in Committee. A lot of explanations will have to be given by the Minister if all connected with collective bargaining are to be satisfied that this Clause will not disturb industrial relations, which at the moment are excellent.
Clause 16 clearly states that all excesses of revenue that the corporation may acquire must in turn be paid over to the Secretary of State. Several hon. Members have referred to this matter and have given their own interpretations. We may well ask why this is the case. Is it because the Minister will have no faith in the members appointed to run the new corporation to manage the business? Does he want to deny them the right to use the excess of revenue that will accrue to the best possible advantage for the industry? What is his purpose in forbidding them to use the expertise which they should have if they are given the job? The whole basis of the Clause

must cut across the basic philosophy of hon. Members opposite who have repeatedly urged the need for public industries to manage their own affairs without departmental influence.
Again, the reversal of this view must require a rational explanation. Or is it that the dead hand of the Treasury has won another battle over the Ministers in the Department, possibly lacking the will to fight those anonymous characters who seem to frighten all departmental chiefs?
In general, I am in favour of some parts of the Bill, but critical of others. My main objection is that I see no need for it to be forced on this already overworked parliamentary machine. I regret the abolition of the area boards. In my opinion, it will prove to be an abysmal failure to substitute other machinery for them. I state this because of my study of the efficiency of the area boards. I suggest that the Bill will wreck a good system of operation which has been established in the industry. The Government are getting rid of it and replacing it with a new structure which, in print, looks like developing into another example of the Tories' inefficiency when they start meddling in the operation of any public industry.
It is an untidy Bill. I and, I am certain, many of my hon. Friends will show sound judgment when we vote against it tonight.

6.22 p.m.

Mr. Hugh Dykes: I welcome this opportunity to intervene briefly in the debate. I am aware that other hon. Members on both sides of the House still wish to speak and time is short.
The debate this afternoon has been characterised by an absence of passion, with the notable exception of the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie), who is not in his place at the moment. It has also been characterised by an absence of political dialogue on one side or the other, with some exceptions. That is right in the sense that the Bill is substantially mechanistic, technical, functional and operational in character. It has many aspects of the prospective Bill which the previous Administration wished to introduce but which was interrupted by, for them, the unhappy event of June, 1970.


One or two anxieties have been voiced this afternoon which will be elaborated and clarified in Committee after the Bill is given its Second Reading. Those anxieties have primarily reflected the consumer aspect. It is on that aspect that I hope to hear one or two comments from my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary when he replies to the debate.
Those anxieties rightly reflect two aspects. The first is that in all the conversions to natural gas there has so far been a mixture of notable success and smoothness in varying degrees in different areas, but also extremely acute difficulty for many consumers. There have been more than a few individual cases. There have been enough to cause Members of Parliament on both sides acute anxiety when they hear of particular cases. And who is to say how many unheard-of cases there are or have been vis-à-vis Members of this House?
The second aspect is that, even including conversion to natural gas and despite the success of the area boards in many places—I do not wish to criticise them too much—there have been far too many occurrences of problems with the installation of appliances. This concerns all appliances—often expensive appliances—which the many showrooms in all areas have been advertising and promoting. I have not time to go into the details of individual cases which have been brought to my attention. I hope that the operation, structural improvements and the reinforcement of the Consultative Council which will come from the Bill will lead to a diminution of these problems in future.
I welcome the provisions primarily of Clause 7 and certain aspects in other Clauses. I welcome those matters which devolve upon the activities in the commercial sector of the future British Gas Corporation and its regional structure: namely, the promotion and selling of appliances and the contracting activities of the industry. This point was tied up with what my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry said when he referred to my Written Question on Tuesday, 18th January at col. 136. I think it will be widely welcomed not only in the House but throughout the country, that the industry will be obliged, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) said, to separate out its accounts in terms

of its commercial contracting and appliance retailing activities from those of its central gas generating, receiving and distributing activities. I wholeheartedly welcome this new development, and I imagine that many hon. Members on both sides will also welcome it.
We should like to see in what precise practical ways the Gas Corporation can become commercial in its accounting. There is no need for us to say "commercial in its activities", because the industry is a great success story. We want clarification of some particular aspects of what that separating of accounts and of activities will mean. What will be a proper commercial rate of return? What will fair competition with the private sector mean? I know that many representatives of the private sector in the country at large will welcome these developments and proposals, even if they are long-term and do not come about immediately. What will it mean if there is any question of disposal later of those activities which are not essential to the industry's primary activity? I realise that that is only a reserve power in the Bill. Answers to these questions will clarify and elucidate some of the Clauses of this largely welcome Bill.

6.27 p.m.

Mr. Thomas Cox: The Minister for Industry made reference to the future development of the gas industry and the part that natural gas conversion will play in it. When all the technical and financial aspects of this have been discussed, the success of it, in the eyes of the general public, will be determined by the consideration which they received from the area gas boards.
I hope that, if not this evening, in Committee, we shall have some indication from the Minister that the problems which consumers have been experiencing as the result of conversion to natural gas will cease and that he will tell us that he has far more powers than he has so far told the House he possesses to overcome many of the difficulties which face consumers.
The Minister referred to the progress which is taking place on gas conversion and stated that within about five years it will have taken place throughout the country. I can only hope that many


people, as gas conversion takes place in their areas, will be spared the kind of problems which constituents of mine have had to face since gas conversion started in Tooting.
I hope that Clause 4 will clear up what I believe are the present inadequate powers of the Minister to force gas boards to change their policies when they are detrimental to the consumer. The Clause gives power to the Minister to direct changes in the activities of the corporation.
The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, in reply to a Question I asked on 17th January, stated:
If the hon. Gentleman has specific complaints, I suggest that he gets in touch with his gas hoard, which is responsible for administering these arrangements. I have no responsibility to tell gas boards how to proceed."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th January, 1972; Vol. 829, c. 19–20.]
I hope we shall be successful in introducing the kind of Amendments we want. I hope also that the Minister will be able to say that he will have the power to take action, because unfortunately at present certain actions of gas boards can only be described as downright dishonest to the consumer. In my area the gas boards are now distributing extremely attractive leaflets. When consumers read them I suppose they think that it is something we should welcome.
In gas showrooms a leaflet is handed out containing questions and answers on gas conversion. One of the questions asked in the leaflet is:
How much is conversion going to cost me?
The answer is:
There is no charge to consumers for conversion. SEGAS is carrying the full cost.
The leaflet goes on to say:
Can all gas appliances, however old, be converted?
The answer:
With very few exceptions the answer is 'Yes'. All gas appliances now on sale are fitted with universal burners which makes conversion a comparatively simple matter. A majority of older appliances can also be converted but some may need special attention.
Anyone reading that would believe that they will have no problems with gas appliances that they have in their homes when they come to be converted. But another leaflet is being handed out by the

South Eastern Gas Board which puts an entirely different picture on the kind of problems that consumers can face and, certainly in my constituency, are facing. One of the comments made in this leaflet is:
Spare parts for old appliances are often not available from the manufacturers and because of this they are very difficult to convert.
Yet in the leaflet given out by gas showrooms it is stated, after the questions and answers, that this should not take place. This causes a great many problems. Many hon. Members on both sides of the House have faced this kind of problem. One hon. Gentleman opposite had an Adjournment debate on 17th January about the problems he faced in his area.
It is downright dishonest of gas boards to tell consumers, many of whom are elderly and do not understand the technical jargon of salesmen, and are very often frightened of the dangers of gas, on the one hand that they will not be forced to any expense and then, on the other hand, to say to them, "We are sorry, but your gas appliance cannot be converted and it will cost you perhaps £20 or £30." I hope that the Minister will say in no uncertain terms that he will have the power to direct gas boards to see that consumers are not forced to expend money as a result of gas conversion.
Many of my constituents are suffering great injustice because of gas conversion. Many are without any heating. Elderly people especially are finding this very difficult to face. They were offered from £2 to £5 compensation for gas appliances that were not converted. Any hon. Member knows that with that kind of compensation elderly persons cannot get adequate alternative heating in their homes.
That is the kind of system I want to see changed. It gives me no pleasure to make these criticisms against a very great nationalised industry. Along with the electricity boards, the industry has made great advances to the benefit of the country. The introduction of natural gas will be extremely beneficial to Britain, certainly financially. But I do not want that financial advantage to occur at the expense of my constituents or those of other hon. Members. I hope to hear from the Minister during the passage of the Bill that he has additional powers to compel area gas boards to see that consumers do


not suffer in any way from gas conversion, especially financially, as they are at present suffering. It is the duty of hon. Members to voice such criticisms in the hope that we shall hear from the Minister a clear statement that he and his Department will seek to put a stop to this as soon as possible.

6.35 p.m.

Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: I apologise to the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Mr. Thomas Cox) for not following up his argument. I want to take up one or two points mentioned by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. Harold Lever).
The argument was in reference to Clause 7. I have indicated that in my view—because I cannot tie the Minister on this matter—what could be hived off are the assets of the existing Gas Council on the Continental Shelf. I adduce as my reasons that it has first option on any gas found, it has only to pay a reasonable price and it would be saving the immense capital expenditure involved.
Since 1964, 349 development wells have been drilled at a total cost of 560 million dollars. There have been a lot of dry holes and there has been immense expenditure, which has never been isolated for the benefit of the public. This could all be saved and all the gas which is required by the existing Gas Council would be available in the United Kingdom at absolutely no cost to the taxpayer. Therefore, I should have thought that that view would have commended itself to many hon. Members.
By sheer coincidence, I have a certain amount of support from my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry. On 11th December, 1969, he said:
The Council's job is to supply gas, and very well it is doing that, and it should stick to that job. It should not be required by the Government to get involved in the oil business.
My argument is very clear here. It is that we want to save the taxpayer money; we want to keep the gas industry to its primary job as a supplier. This could be done without prejudicing its interests. I agree with one or two of the comments made from the Opposition benches on the question of centralisation. The Bill is the epitome of centralisation. I realise that there are marked dangers in it.
In the same debate in 1969 my hon. Friend the Minister also said:
I will only add at this stage that no matter how much one may regret this trend"—
that is, centralisation—
it is an inevitable consequence of nationalisation. This is being experienced now by, for example, the steel industry. If one creates a monopoly in the public sector, then real power is increasingly drawn into the centre.
My argument would be that if we are to be faced with undue centralisation, would it not be better to induce what I will term private participation in the supply industry in the United Kingdom? One has only to look to the Continent to see several examples. The Government could have favoured the policy of Gasunie in the Netherlands, where there is participation by Dutch private interests which has worked remarkably well since its inception: or Ruhrgas and Thyssengas in West Germany, or Distrigas in Belgium. Unfortunately, however, the Government have not accepted the options open to them. They have taken in some measure the example which has been established in Italy by E.N.I. and Gaz de France. Here we have extremely large State structures which cannot be referred to the Monopolies Commission. They can set their prices, for which no criteria have been settled. They bring in substantial profits if they can. I hope that they will be able to do that.
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary brought out one argument with which I fully agree. In 1969, after he had deprecated the passing of the area boards, he said—and this is a danger to which we should be alive:
This has been admitted by the C.E.G.B.; there are few people qualified to criticise technically who are not within it. There is this danger from size itself, in that we shall cease to have the ability for open debate about the the future and about failings."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th December 1969; Vol. 793, c. 729, 725, 761–2.]
This is an argument that we must face. I agree that with the evolution of the industry we must move ahead and we have to appreciate the problems that the gas industry faces.
The next question might be, what does the monopoly cover? It covers all pipeline gas throughout England, Scotland and Wales, including natural gas, gas derived from petroleum fractions, gas from what is left of the old carbonisation


process, chemical gases, and later perhaps synthetic natural gas from coal. When we set up a monumental institution like the proposed British Gas Corporation, some attempt should be made to define what is gas. In Clause 48 of the Bill natural gas is defined but no attempt is made to define gas.
It is entirely wrong that the chemical industry, which may be moving oxygen, ethlyene and the rest, should have to go to the Gas Council under Section 52 of the 1948 Act—it comes in another form in Clause 29 of the Bill—for consent to move it. I should much prefer to see the emphasis changed entirely in a way that ensured that if it wished to do these things, the consent of the British Gas Corporation would not be required.
The other part outside the monopoly—gas moved other than by pipeline, namely liquid petroleum gas and liquid natural gas—is a growing and expanding business. I have no doubt that as this enormous organisation gets going, it will move into that business.
The Minister's statement today about by-product gas from coke ovens and tail gases from refineries was an easement of the situation. In the case of Conoco and La Porte Industries, they have entered into an agreement whereby the former is transmitting to the latter for prime energy use 500 million therms over a 10-year period. This is sent through a four-and-a-half-mile pipeline. The way it would be conducted under the Bill is that the consent of the British Gas Corporation would have to be secured first. The Minister says that he will have certain flexibility and will grant it. But I think that it should be the other way round: that up to a certain quantity of gas there should be direct sales by the owners of it to industry—namely, of tail gases and coke oven gas. Beyond that, consent would be required. Nor do I see any requirement for consent which may be automatic in the case of chemicals under Clause 29 of the Bill or Section 9 of the Continental Shelf Act, 1964.
I am also glad to find that crude oil and gas condensate are outside the Bill. I cannot understand the argument of the Opposition for wishing to bring them in. Have not they heard that British Petroleum is part Government-owned?

Do they want to set up a competitor to their own partly-owned enterprise?

Mr. Palmer: Why not?

Mr. Skeet: Because it is better to have real competitors in private industry. If the hon. Gentleman wants to challenge that, I am prepared to give way to him. Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite do not like competition. That was why initially they set up the Gas Council, where there is no competition at all.

Mr. Palmer: My party has no objection to competition—that is, competition between publicly-owned enterprises.

Mr. Skeet: That is anathema. Once a publicly-owned enterprise is established, it becomes comprehensive and it covers the lot. There is no competition.

Mr. Kaufman: Not necessarily.

Mr. Skeet: If one looks at the gas industry—

Mr. Kaufman: Mr. Kaufman rose—

Mr. Skeet: No, I shall not give way. If the hon. Gentleman succeeds in catching Mr. Speaker's eye, he can make his own speech. I am glad to see that the Minister has excluded that section.
I do not follow the argument that while the corporation is entitled to search for natural gas, it is not entitled to search for petroleum. Petroleum is very much involved. The Gas Council and Amoco have an interesting discovery at Block 22 18. Do they bring it forward as crude oil and sell it on the open market? I am sure that it will be a useful result in this limited form.
I want now to refer briefly to one or two figures relating to the position in the United Kingdom as I see it. They lead me to the conclusion that there is little chance of the British Gas Corporation running out of supplies, and that there should be a margin available at a later date for exports, if private enterprise becomes entitled to do this, which at present it is denied.
There are something like 0·9 trillion cubic metres of gas in the English basin in the form of reserves. There are 1·5 trillion cubic metres available to Holland and that is made available to Common Market countries. Local supplies are


only made available to the United Kingdom. Deliverable supplies in the United Kingdom will be of the order of 4,000 or 4,500 million cu. ft. per day, but the availability by 1975 should be up to 6,000 million cu. ft. a day. Most of the reserves are well inside the median line of the United Kingdom. They should be extremely valuable and profitable.
I make only one quotation. It is from W. W. Dunn, the Vice-President of Phillips Petroleum Co. Europe-Africa. He said:
Recoverable reserves of non-associated gas of about 40 trillion cubic feet have been established in two producing reservoirs, and two-thirds of the present reserves are in United Kingdom quarters. However, there are significant reserves of associated gas in Norway which will be produced with oil and there are also indications of deeper gas reservoirs. It is possible to foresee gas reserves approaching 50–55 trillion cubic feet
That is most encouraging news and it underlines the fact that there is no question of our running out of supplies in the future. The Government can afford to be charitable to private concerns. There is no need for a cast-iron monopoly keeping out competitors.
The British Gas Corporation will be the sole buyer and virtually the sole supplier at a price determined by Section 9 of the Continental Shelf Act, 1964. I believe that certain modifications or amendments should be made to it to assist private operators.
I suggest also that as the Bill empowers the British Gas Corporation, with the Minister's consent, to export gas, there is no reason why private enterprise should not enter the market as well, especially if this will be of interest to our balance of payments position. This is rather important as the United States is running short of gas and there may be a buoyant market in that quarter, partly fed by North Sea reserves.
Though the National Gas Board is entitled to explore for natural gas on the Continental Shelf it does not need to do so, while the C.E.G.B. which wants to, is not entitled to explore. It was the C.E.G.B. which wanted to get Viking gas from the Continental Oil Company. This it failed to get. It was prepared to import it in the form of liquid natural gas, but this it could not do. It could not burn it in its power stations without the assent of the Minister, which I am sure he was not prepared to give. It is

ridiculous that one nationalised industry should be tied by restrictions imposed by another.
Private enterprise would welcome the opportunity of participating in the monopoly. It is denied it because of the Statutes which have been passed by successive Governments. The British Gas Corporation on the other hand, can buy from private enterprise what assets it likes, with ministerial consent. If there were a change of Government, right hon. and hon. Members opposite would not hesitate to utilise the power.
I wish to make a special plea for the manufacturers of plant and equipment in the United Kingdom. They will be faced with exactly the same crisis as occurred with the C.E.G.B. There is one buyer and in the end prices are forced down and manufacturers are forced out of existence. I wonder whether the Minister has considered this point.
There are one or two short points I wish to make. I notice that the Bill will enable the corporation to buy its land under the Acquisition of Land (Authorisation Procedure) Act, 1946, as though it was a local authority. This is regrettable. A local authority is elected, the British Gas Corporation is not. All of its members are appointed by the Minister. It should therefore not have those powers, although I agree that there are respectable precedents. This can be argued in another place.
Finally I come to the claw-back provision in Clause 16, which, of course, I support. Should we not have laid down criteria under which it is to operate, and could we not have some word tonight about the effect of the value-added tax on the industry? I assume that when gas is sold at the beach-head value-added tax will be charged, and I assume that when the gas is sold to the customer it will also come in. Could the Minister be a little more specific on these points which are of interest to all hon. Members?

6.53 p.m.

Mr. Gwynoro Jones: As one who used to work in the gas industry before coming to this House, I had prepared lengthy notes for this debate. However, I can set everyone's mind at rest by saying that I will not pursue many matters tonight but will save them for a later stage.
I am surprised that the Under-Secretary has even bothered to come along tonight when I see what he had to say in the debate on the Second Reading of the Gas Bill in 1969. He said then:
There will be an end to the area boards as we have known them, and this is a great pity. But I hope that more work will be done on finding ways of devolving responsibility down from the centre, or otherwise the heart and soul will go out of those people who are trying to contribute by working their way un through an industry such as this."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th December, 1969; Vol. 793, c. 761.]
It was not just left to the hon. Gentleman, because the present Minister for Industry expressed great fears about the abandonment of the functions of the area boards. In Standing Committee he said:
On Second Reading I expressed fears lest this Measure would go so far as virtually to abolish for all intents and purposes the area boards. … My fear is that the powers which are now being taken on behalf of the Gas Council will in due course completely erode the authority of the area board chairmen and their senior management staff."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E, 20th January, 1970; c. 5–6.]
There was this great passionate plea made by the " terrible twins " defending area boards. They pleaded—they even took it to a vote in Committee—that we on this side should not take away the functions of the area boards. It was anathema to them. Here we are now—not only taking away the functions—but abolishing the area boards. I look forward to hearing the remarks of the hon. Gentleman on his change of heart.
Have there been consultations with the area board chairman in preparation for the Bill? I recall that on the occasion of the last Gas Bill there was a great deal of consultation and controversy, in particular from one area board chairman. If there is to be reorganisation and reconstruction of the industry I am sure that it is coming at the wrong time. We are in the middle of a great upheaval caused by conversion. The reorganisation will cause chaos and great concern. There was concern on the last occasion. The Under-Secretary said on Second Reading:
Would it not therefore be wiser to leave well alone and have the same arrangements for the next slice as we have had for the last?".—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 11th December, 1969; Vol 793, c. 769.]

How right he is; but why come along today and propose such a mammoth piece of centralisation?
I was asked my reasons for proposing that the area boards should be kept in existence, maybe not as area bodies but as some other organisation in the area. The Minister for Industry implied that Wales and the West Midlands should be put together with a centre in Birmingham. The Government are not highly thought of in Wales at the moment. If they want to keep the people happy there the last thing they should suggest is that Birmingham, should run Wales.

Mr. Ridley: I though that the hon. Gentleman missed the negative in my hon. Friend's speech. My hon. Friend said that that would not be possible. I saw the hon. Member jump when he said it.

Mr. Jones: I am glad to hear that. There is no doubt that the industry has made tremendous changes. The Gas Council has changed since it was set up. Its first task was to advise the Minister, to act as an advisory and co-ordinating body. There has been a considerable change. The council played a major part in the implementation of policy for the industry. It has moved from decentralised production to centralised supply. from localised production to a national grid system, from diversified costs of production to a common supply price. The industry has changed, and the Gas Council's rôle has become more important.
The danger here is not only that of remoteness. What will be the functions of the organisations in Wales and Scotland and the regions? One of the tragedies is that this is not in the Bill. Civil servants would always want to keep power in Whitehall but the regions naturally want more devolution of power. In this era of political devolution it is extraordinary for the Government to press this massive centralisation upon us. What does the Minister see as being the rôle of the organisation in the areas in such things as customer service, marketing and sales? There must be effective decisions here. The marketing policy of the West Midlands could not be pursued in Wales, because conditions differ, income per head varies, and so on. Local conditions vary. Marketing, sales and customer service conditions differ in different areas. It


would not be good enough for the new corporation to be running those services for the whole of the country without the decision being made in Wales on the matters to which I have referred.
There are problems at present with customer service, but we must not be too critical of the gas boards over conversion difficulties. It is a major task. But customer relations are not what they should be. Remoteness is already a factor creeping in in the present system. Showrooms have been closed and are replaced by mobile showrooms, but often these mobile units come round infrequently. The local authority in Kidwelly has been told that its mobile showroom will come around only once a quarter.
This sense of remoteness under the present system will obviously increase under the new system, with no guarantee that the regions will have their own organisations by which they can perform their duties effectively. The people of Wales will not allow such a massive piece of centralisation. It is a retrograde step and a bad policy decision on commercial and political grounds. At the same time we are talking of political devolution, we are removing effective area board control. This will not do for Wales or Scotland, and I am sure that the regions of England—the West Midlands, particularly—will find problems in view of their present gas prices.

7.3 p.m.

Mr. Peter Rost: The House will be relieved to hear that my speech today will be even briefer than my speeches usually are. I have been fortunate enough to speak after my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet), who said a number of the things that I wanted to raise.
I welcome the Bill, but I, too, have some serious reservations which can probably be discussed in more detail later. I particularly welcome Clause 7 and the hiving-off powers. I must reply to the quite unwarranted attack upon me by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. Harold Lever). I support this Clause not for any doctrinaire reasons but simply because it will give the industry the opportunity it needs, as one of our most rapidly expanding areas, to maximise its growth and efficiency. It will give it the opportunity, which the previous Government were not prepared

to give, to sell off any surplus land or property that it is not using or does not require, perhaps to cut down on some of the plushy showrooms and extravagant headquarter offices, money for which could be put to better use to meet the industry's hungry need for capital investment. For these reasons, the Clause is admirable and I hope that it will be put to use fairly quickly.
I welcome the opportunity which the industry will now have to introduce competition into retailing, contracting and servicing. This is most important for the consumer. I wonder whether the Bill will go far enough and whether competition which may at the moment be unfair will not only develop but become fair.
I also support Clause 2, which prevents the corporation from developing oil search and expanding in oil refining and the chemical field. I support this not because I do not believe that the gas industry would be capable of developing here but because it is important for national efficiency and competition that there should be at least one fuel industry owned completely by private enterprise. This will provide competition against the other, nationalised, industries, even if that competition is heavily weighted against the oil industry because it is lumbered with heavy taxation.
I have some anxieties about the clawing back of profits under Clause 16. I cannot see why, under the modern corporate structure, it is necessary to have such a provision. One hopes that the gas industry will be profitable and that the profits will be absorbed in fresh capital investment. Why have a clawing back when one has one's palm open all the time for an open-ended source of money for fresh capital investment? Surely the two should be integrated, so that cash flow can be coordinated and can be seen to go into sensible capital investment, which will produce the expansion that the industry needs.
I naturally welcome the new accounting process, because this is the most important move forward in our thinking towards the nationalised sector. It will prevent cross-subsidisation of one sector of a corporation with another and ensure genuine competition, while stopping unfair competition. I hope that the same will be done with the other nationalised industries, where applicable, particularly


electricity, so that one can know the cost of reading the meters, servicing and providing sales facilities, as opposed to the cost of generation and distribution.
Reverting to what I said about the financial structure of the industry, I have some reservations about Clauses 17 to 22, which relate to borrowing powers, and these provisions require further thought. It appears that these borrowing powers are virtually unlimited. I am particularly anxious that we discuss whether or not some restriction will be placed on them by the industry having to operate through the market. If so, the market disciplines will ensure that a commercial return is produced on the capital investment, rather than allowing there to be an open-ended borrowing facility, with money available as and when required up to almost any amount.
I feel rather unhappy about Clause 29, which imposes a restriction on the sale of gas to the customer. This could be too restrictive, and I hope that we shall have an opportunity to discuss the extent to which the industrial user will be restricted, particularly in relation to long-term contracts.
I have particularly in mind one of the most rapidly expanding processes in the consumption of gas, which is the on-site generation of electricity through total energy. This has had an explosive growth in Holland since natural gas was discovered there, and it is clear that the process will be coming here.
We want an assurance that long-term contracts will be made available in a competitive way, without restriction, so that this sphere of activity can expand. I also query how we are to define "reasonable price" when it comes to giving the industry first option on the purchase of gas.
With these reservations, which are important—there are others to which I would have referred had not my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford mentioned them—I believe that the Bill represents an important reform of the industry. I hope that it will provide the scope it needs to develop further and thereby prove the important rôle it will undoubtedly play in the future of British industry as a whole.

7.13 p.m.

Mr. Eric G. Varley: The House will not regard it as a discourtesy if I and, I believe, the Under-Secretary who intends to reply to the debate do not cover all the points that have been raised by hon. Members, because I sense that the House is anxious to come to a decision in the matter.
Allowing for the strong points that have been made by, among others, my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie), my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Gwynoro Jones) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Palmer) about the regional aspects of the Bill and particularly about the way in which it will affect Scotland and Wales, we could have given it a speedy Second Reading followed probably by a speedy Committee stage. However, I am not so sure now that we can be that speedy in our deliberations in view of some of the more contentious aspects of the Measure.
We certainly could not allow the Bill to go by without reminding the Minister for Industry and the Under-Secretary of some of the things they said about the gas industry on 11th December, 1969. On that occasion we were debating a modest proposal of ours, yet they said that it was far too centralised and bureaucratic. When we read this Bill, however, we note how much further they have gone. We recall the long Committee stage that took place on that occasion.
However, hon. Gentlemen opposite have inserted into today's Bill some of the prejudices which they, and particularly the Minister for Industry, showed. There can be no doubt about that. For example, there was a prolonged filibuster in Committee on that occasion about the gas industry's profitability and the question of stopping the industry from exploiting any of the oil it found in its offshore search for gas.
The Minister for Industry has resuscitated his prejudices in the form of Clause 2(3)(b) and, under this Measure, the Gas Corporation will not be allowed to refine its oil. It will have to market its crude oil in a restricted market and take whatever price it can get for it. To some extent, therefore, I salute the Minister's


triumph, but I warn him that in Committee we shall want to put that proposal back in its resting place.
We start with something old and later in the Bill we find something new. But we certainly have something borrowed. It has been borrowed from last year's Coal Industry Bill, as my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian pointed out. We have the ritual hiving-off Clause which we seem to get nowadays in everything introduced by the Minister for Industry. On this occasion it came to the notice of the House through the well-known device of the "planted" Question. The Minister for Industry said a week ago last Tuesday:
The Gas Bill provides for a general power for the Government to direct the corporation to discontinue activities and dispose of assets which are not essential to its primary business. This is a reserve power and its inclusion in the Bill does not indicate any present intention of making use of it."—[OFFICIAT, REPORT, 18th January, 1972; Vol. 829, c. 137.]
I said that we could have a relatively short or long Committee stage but in relation to Clause 7 we can do a deal only if the Minister is prepared to say that it is not necessary.
Another important provision is Clause 16, which provides for the creaming-off of what is blandly described as excess profits. The Under-Secretary may say that the same provision appears in Section 24(8) of the Transport Act, 1968, but he will not get away with that if that is the excuse he uses in this instance. It was included in that legislation primarily as a quid pro quo in exchange for extinguishing part of the capital debt of the British Railways Board.
Thus, from the point of view of this Measure the creaming-off exercise in Clause 16 is new. I have the support of the Financial Times in this. A number of questions have been asked about the intentions of the Government in this respect and we still want to know, for example, to what use the creamed-off profits will be put and how they will be creamed off. I had intended to go into some of the questions that were asked about this matter by the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Rost) and the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet). I hope that in Committee we will join forces and succeed in knocking that Clause out of the Bill.
I have been asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding)—who cannot take part in this debate because he is engaged in Committee upstairs on the Sound Broadcasting Bill—to mention representations that he has made to the Government on the subject of liability for damage caused by explosions and accidents to, in particular, Post Office engineers. The number of such occurrences increased from 12 in 1963 to 68 in 1970. I do not expect the Under-Secretary to reply to this point tonight. I hope, however, that he will look into the matter, note the representations that my hon. Friend has made and give a considered answer.
I come to the strange case of the gas showrooms. In August, 1970, the Prices and Incomes Board produced a report about the gas showrooms and made critical remarks about the smaller showrooms, recommending that those which could not be made profitable should be closed down. But it did not suggest that there should be a duplication of private gas showrooms. This matter has been dealt with at some length. I know that the Gas Council is looking at the board's recommendations. I cannot understand what the hon. Gentleman was driving at in his answer to a recent Written Question when he said that it was the Government's wish
… to encourage a flourishing private sector throughout the whole range of appliance retailing and contracting activities carried on by the industry …
He added that a first essential was
… the creation of such conditions as to ensure that gas revenues are not used to subsidise the gas industry's operations in the fields of retailing and contracting."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th January, 1972; Vol. 829, c. 136.]
As I have said, the Gas Council is already acting on the recommendations of the Prices and Incomes Board, so I hope that we are not going to have all the paraphernalia of duplication arising again. Of course the private competitors are to be encouraged, but I hope that if the Government are really serious about this they would take account of the ancillary functions which place such a financial burden on the Gas Council in maintaining gas showrooms. I hope that this is not a question of gas showrooms being set up just to get the lucrative business of the gas industry. What


the Minister is doing, or what he might be doing, is typing the hands of the gas industry.
Then there is the question of Clause 38, which one of my hon. Friends has described as the panic Clause. This is a panic provision in response to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's request to bring forward public expenditure programmes within the nationalised industries. In the Bill the sum is £5 million and in the Electricity Bill, to be produced next week, the figure will be £25 million. The Government are asking the nationalised industries to scratch around and see what expenditure they can bring forward. I remind the Government again of what they were saying only a few months ago. They said that the answer to the unemployment problem was virtually untrammelled and unfettered private enterprise. They certainly said so before the General Election. Now, because of the Government's appalling policies, we have over 1 million unemployed and we are seeing another Government conversion. Ministers are now saying that the only answer to the problem is to ask public corporations to bring forward their investment programmes.
But the Government should follow this to its logical conclusion. We accept that public enterprise has a big part to play in maintaining employment and a long-term strategy for employment. Let us have more of it. But let it be well thought out and strategic. Just because the Government's other policies have failed so miserably, do not let us have panic measures. Do not let them go running to the gas and electricity industries saying, "We are in a mess. Here is some money. See what you can do to get us out of it."
The Gas Bill which the last Government introduced in autumn, 1969, had 25 Clauses and it was described by the then Opposition as a terribly bureaucratic, centralising Bill. We had a Committee stage of three months with very many long sittings. This is a 50-Clause Bill. On the lines of opposition to our Gas Bill in 1969–70, this should mean a six months' Committee stage.

Mr. William Ross: I will join.

Mr. Varley: We are prepared to help to facilitate this Bill, which is important.

My hon. Friends the Members for Midlothian and Carmarthen have demonstrated how it will affect Scotland and Wales. If the Government say that they intend to abandon Clauses 7 and 16 and to have a total strategy for employment prospects within the gas industry, we will help the Bill through Committee. If the Government cannot say that, we shall start by voting against the Bill tonight and promising that we will scrutinise it in Committee to the utmost.

7.25 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Nicholas Ridley): If I am as brief as possible, it is not because many interesting points have not been raised which I would like to reply to but because I know that the House wishes to move on to other business and also because there will be ample opportunity in Committee to discuss the points raised.
I welcome the right hon. Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. Harold Lever) as Shadow Minister of Power, as I suppose he is now. We greatly miss his predecessor, who was a sort of oratorical blastfurnace. But I am sure that we shall be charmed by the natural gas of the right hon. Gentleman in his new position. His grounds for inviting the Opposition to vote against the Bill were very thin.
First, I deal with the point raised by the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Mr. Thomas Cox). The powers in the Bill to compel the Gas Corporation are no greater than those contained in previous legislation and it will still be the Government's intention that responsibility for natural gas conversion should remain with the boards.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) talked of the problem of defining gas. Although it is a difficult legal problem, it does not now seem to be so important or pressing. Perhaps we can pursue this point in Committee, I hope to his satisfaction.
To the hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. Garrett), I point out that the industrial relations Clauses in the Bill are almost identical to those in the 1948 Act. Far from its being my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment who carries the responsibility for the insertion of these Clauses, it was the late Lord Morrison of Lambeth who designed them. Equally, existing agreements with the


trade unions can continue or be built upon or changed as the corporation may in time desire.
The two grounds on which the Opposition appear to have doubts about the Bill—and I repeat they are very thin grounds—are Clause 7 and Clause 16.

Mr. Gwynoro Jones: And centralisation.

Mr. Ridley: I accept the correction. But the first two grounds appears to be Clauses 7 and 16.
There are good precedents for Clause 7—the Iron and Steel Act, 1949, the Iron and Steel Act, 1967, the Transport Act, 1962, the Coal Act, 1971, and the Civil Aviation Act, 1971. I could almost agree with the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) that this is a ritual Clause. No Government can foresee the course of industrial logic in the future. It is always possible to be wrong. There are powers in nationalisation Statutes to enlarge the areas of the boards; so why not have powers to reduce them if necessary? I see no particular doctrinaire objection to the owners of the industry—the taxpayers—taking power to affect the shape and size of the industry as they so wish.
But I make it clear that there is no present intention of using these powers either in relation to the retailing and contracting activities or in relation to Gas Council (Exploration) Limited which my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford would like to see them directed against.
In defending Clause 16, I do not see why the taxpayers, who in the last resort are providers of the capital and the financers of the industry, and who are called upon often to make up deficits, should not have the power to bring in excess revenue if that should happen. There are equally many precedents for this—both the Iron and Steel Acts, the Civil Aviation Act, the Air Corporations Act and the Coal Industry Act, 1965. I accept, however, that these are in a slightly different category, because they all arose out of capital reconstructions. But I believe that there should be a standard Clause in nationalised industry legislation, so that the Government have powers to set right the finances of a nationalised industry either way.
The debate centred more on gas, but it is on the cards that the corporation might discover large quantities of oil or gas. The possibility of the taxpayers paying themselves a dividend is something the House would be unwise to regard with so much hostility.
My hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) raised a point about the competition in installing central heating fixtures that the corporation will experience from the oil industry. It would be impossible for the corporation to subsidise the installation of central heating equipment and then to charge the tied customers who own the houses concerned a greater sum that it would normally charge. I think that it would be prevented from doing that under the Bill. We are watching very carefully the oil industry's practice in this respect. Now that it is the Government's intention that the gas retailing and contracting activities should be carried out on a purely economic basis, I hope that the oil industry will compete fairly. We are keeping a close watch on such arrangements, and I do not rule out the possibility of a reference to the Monopolies Commission.
One of the main themes of the debate was the great importance of the relationship between the consumer and the corporation. Here I pay a warm tribute to the Report of the Select Committee so well chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid). The Government will give their comments later, but I should like to say something about the provisions of the Bill in this regard.
There is one respect, and one respect only, in which the Government have taken a decision different from that recommended by the Select Committee. I had hoped that my hon. Friend would give us a little more credit for embodying so much of his Report in the Bill. For instance, the Chairman of the National Gas Consultative Council is not to be a member of the board, which is a change in practice recommended by my hon. Friend. The council will be able to publish separate reports. There will be a national body for the industry. There will be payment for the chairman and provision for payment of pensions and expenses. We shall make provision for


payment for expert assistance, and there will, of course, be payment for staff and accommodation.
The respect in which we have differed slightly from the Select Committee is that we have said that the cost of those services should fall on gas consumers and not on the taxpayers. It would be wrong to charge the general body of taxpayers with what is purely a matter for gas consumers. Some taxpayers do not burn gas. But the determination of the amount of those sums in either case would have to lie with my right hon. Friend. Therefore, there is no question of the corporation's being able to dictate to, lay down terms to, or patronise the council. There will be complete independence and a right of direct access to the Minister for the council if it feels that its independence is in any way threatened. We can explore this question further in Committee, and if the wording can be changed in any way to make the Government's intentions clearer and more straightforward, we shall certainly consider doing that, but I do not believe there is a great departure from the recommendations of the Select Committee.
Now a word about prices. No control is laid down in the Bill. Clause 25 deals with prices. It will be for the corporation to work out its own pricing structure and set its own policy, subject to the constraints in that Clause. It has always been the case that nationalised industries are free to determine their own pricing policy. I was surprised that the righ hon. Member for Cheetham found that either extraordinary or regrettable. I cannot help quoting what he said in the Standing Committee on the last Bill:
In the last analysis, the whole scheme of this Bill is that the Gas Council should fix the tariffs throughout the country as well as the bulk supply charges."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E, 24th March, 1970; c. 840.]
The right hon. Gentleman is now suggesting that we should take power to ask the corporation to reduce prices in the regions at the expense of the more favoured areas. That is a matter for the corporation. There will be economies from central supplies of North Sea gas, which will have their effect in the more expensive regions such as Scotland, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward Taylor) is always con

cerned. But the local costs in gas supply, the costs of the distributive network, are very high. That factor may well militate against such regions. What I think the corporation must do is to put forward in due course the principles of its new pricing policy so that they can be seen to be fair and acceptable to all. There is a difficult problem here.
I should like to say just a few words about centralisation, because hon. Members have given their opinions. Two or three years ago the Opposition were dubious about this move, but the logic of the situation has changed. It is that change, which becomes obvious after a certain period, that has necessitated the change in the legislation. No one saw the need for change in 1945, because no one saw the likelihood of natural gas coming. We should make a mistake in our legislation on nationalised industries if we tied any of the corporations to too inflexible a system. The possibility that we might have to legislate again to change the structure is surely something that would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman as logical. The corporation may well make little difference to the administrative arrangements, but it is free to make those differences that it thinks to be sensible. That does not mean that the area boards will necessarily disappear. They will cease to be statutory, but their future is in the hands of the industry for them to evolve. That is managerially very important, and something to which I have always subscribed and will continue to subscribe to.

Mr. Edward Taylor: Mr. Edward Taylor rose—

Mr. Ridley: I shall not give way because I am about to finish.

Mr. Eadie: Give way. The hon. Gentleman is an ex-Minister.

Mr. Ridley: I should like to quote something said by the Chairman-designate of the corporation, Mr. Hetherington, who has written to us about his intention in this respect. He said:
Although the new organisation must mean an increase in central authority, the Corporation will clearly take care to see that the regional organisations remain strong and sensitive to the needs of their customers in each area. Local knowledge will still be vital and indeed I think it unlikely that the Corporation would want to start with anything different from the 12 existing Board areas. I hope the Corporation will concern itself with major


issues such as the industry's investment programme, leaving the regions freedom to operate within the terms of a broad policy set out by the Corporation.
I believe that the hon. Members for Carmarthen (Mr. Gwynoro Jones) and Midlothian (Mr. Eadie) can feel from that that the genuine interest of Wales, Scotland and other parts of the country are fully reflected in the attitude of the Chairman-designate, though I understand the feelings they expressed today. The people of Wales and Scotland would not like a rigid organisational structure to stand in the way of the greatest possible

efficiency and the lowest possible gas prices. So I hope the House will think twice before voting against this very good Bill, which will start a new era for the gas industry, one which I hope will continue the success it has had in the past, which is in no small measure due to the retiring Chairman, Sir Henry Jones.

I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time:—

The House divided: Ayes 172, Noes 147.

Division No. 46.]
AYES
[7.40 p.m.


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)
Onslow, Cranley


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Goodhart, Philip
Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally


Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian
Goodhew, Victor
Page, Graham (Crosby)


Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)
Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)
Parkinson, Cecil


Atkins, Humphrey
Gray, Hamish
Peel, John


Awdry, Daniel
Green, Alan
Percival, Ian


Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord
Grieve, Percy
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch


Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton
Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)
Price, David (Eastleigh)


Bell, Ronald
Gummer, J. Selwyn
Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis


Benyon, W.
Gurden, Harold
Quennell, Miss J. M.


Biffen, John
Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)
Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter


Biggs-Davison, John
Hall, John (Wycombe)
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Blaker, Peter
Hannam, John (Exeter)
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas


Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)
Haselhurst, Alan
Ridsdale, Julian


Boscawen, Robert
Hastings, Stephen
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)


Bossom, Sir Clive
Havers, Michael
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Bowden, Andrew
Hawkins, Paul
Rost, Peter


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John
Hayhoe, Barney
Russell, Sir Ronald


Bray, Ronald
Heseltine, Michael
St. John-Stevas, Norman


Brinton, Sir Tatton
Higgins, Terence L.
Scott, Nicholas


Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher
Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.)
Sharples, Richard


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Hill, James (Southampton, Test)
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Holland, Philip
Shelton, William (Clapham)


Bullus, Sir Eric
Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia
Smith, Dudley (W'wick &amp; L'mington)


Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Howell, David (Guildford)
Soref, Harold


Campbell, Rt. Hn. G.(Moray &amp; Nairn)
Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)
Speed, Keith


Carlisle, Mark
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Spence, John


Channon, Paul
Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)
Sproat, Iain


Chapman, Sydney
Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine
Stanbrook, Ivor


Clark, William (Surrey, E.)
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Kinsey, J. R.
Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)


Clegg, Walter
Kirk, Peter
Stuttaford, Dr. Tom


Cockeram, Eric
Knox, David
Sutcliffe, John


Cooke, Robert
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Tapsell, Peter


Cooper, A. E.
Le Marchant, Spencer
Taylor, Edward M.(G'gow, Cathcart)


Corfield, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Cormack, Patrick
Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Iangstone)
Tebbit, Norman


Critchley, Julian
Longden, Sir Gilbert
Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret


Crouch, David
Loveridge, John
Trew, Peter


Curran, Charles
McAdden, Sir Stephen
Tugendhat, Christopher


d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
McCrindle, R. A.
Vaughan, Dr. Gerard


d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj. -Gen. James
Maclean, Sir Fitzroy
Vickers, Dame Joan


Digby, Simon Wingfield
McMaster, Stanley
Walder, David (Clitheroe)


Dixon, Piers
McNair-Wilson, Michael
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek


du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward
Maddan, Martin
Ward, Dame Irene


Eden, Sir John
Marten, Neil
Warren, Kenneth


Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Mather, Carol
Weatherill, Bernard


Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)
Maude, Angus
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Eyre, Reginald
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
White, Roger (Gravesend)


Farr, John
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William


Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)
Mills, Peter (Torrington)
Wiggin, Jerry


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Miscampbell, Norman
Wilkinson, John


Fookes, Miss Janet
Moate, Roger
Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher


Fortescue, Tim
Money, Ernie
Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.


Foster, Sir John
Monks, Mrs. Connie



Fowler, Norman
Montgomery, Fergus
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Fox, Marcus
Murton, Oscar
Mr. Michael Jopling and


Fry, Peter
Neave, Airey
 Mr. John Stradling Thomas 


Gibson-Watt, David
Normanton, Tom





NOES


Allen, Scholefield
Harper, Joseph
Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles


Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Parker, John (Dagenham)


Armstrong, Ernest
Hattersley, Roy
Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)


Atkinson, Norman
Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis
Pavitt, Laurie


Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)
Heffer, Eric S.
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred


Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)
Horam, John
Perry, Ernest G.


Bidwell, Sydney
Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.


Bishop, E. S.
Howell, Denis (Small Heath)
Prescott, John


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Huckfield, Leslie
Price, William (Rugby)


Booth, Albert
Hughes, Mark (Durham)
Rankin, John


Bradley, Tom
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)
Reed, D. (Sedgefield)


Buchan, Norman
Jeger, Mrs. Lena
Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)


Carmichael, Neil
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Richard, Ivor


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)


Cocks, Michael Bristol, S.)
Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)
Roper, John


Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)
Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)
Rose, Paul B.


Cronin, John
Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W.Ham, S.)
Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)


Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)
Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)


Cunningham, Dr. J. A (Whitehaven)
Judd, Frank
Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)


Dalyell, Tam
Kaufman, Gerald
Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)


Darling, Rt. Hn. George
Kelley, Richard
Skinner, Dennis


Davidson, Arthur
Lamond, James
Small, William


Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)
Latham, Arthur
Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)


Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)
Lawson, George
Spearing, Nigel


Deakins, Eric
Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold
Stallard, A. W.


Delargy, H. J.
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Steel, David


Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund
McBride, Neil
Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)


Doig, Peter
Mackie, John
Stoddart, David (Swindon)


Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)
Marquand, David
Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John 


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Marsden, F.
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley


Driberg, Tom
Meacher, Michael
Tinn, James


Dunn, James A.
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert
Tomney, Frank


Dunnett, Jack
Mendelson, John
Torney, Tom


Eadie, Alex
Mikardo, Ian
Urwin, T. W.


Edelman, Maurice
Harper, Joseph
Varley, Eric G.


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Molloy, William
Wallace, George


Ewing, Harry
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Watkins, David


Fisher, Mrs. Doris (B'ham, Ladywood)
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Weitzman, David



Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)
Wellbeloved, James


Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Moyle, Roland
Whitlock, William


Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick


Foot, Michael
Oakes, Gordon
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)


Fraser, John (Norwood)
Ogden, Eric
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Galpern, Sir Myer
O'Halloran, Michael
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)


Garrett, W. E.
O'Malley, Brian
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)


Gilbert, Dr. John
Oram, Bert
Woof, Robert


Golding, John
Orme, Stanley



Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)
Oswald, Thomas
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)
Padley, Walter
Mr. T. D. Concannon and


Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.
Paget, R. T.
 Mr. Tom Pendry.


Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)
Palmer, Arthur

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

GAS [MONEY]

Queen's Recommendation having been signified—

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make fresh provision with respect to the gas industry in Great Britain and related matters, and for purposes connected therewith, it is expedient to authorise—

(1) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—
(a) sums not exceeding £5 million to be applied as contributions to expenses incurred by gas authorities in connection with agreements entered into with the Sec

retary of State to promote employment, and
(b) remuneration and allowances to, and pensions to or in respect of, persons appointed under the said Act to test gas or examine gas meters, and
(c) any administrative expenses incurred under the said Act by the Secretary of State or by any other Minister of the Crown or Government department; and

(2) the issue out of the National Loans Fund of such sums as are necessary to enable the Secretary of State to make loans under the said Act to the body thereby reconstituted as the British Gas Corporation; and

(3) the charging on, and the issue out of, the Consolidated Fund of any sum required by the Treasury to fulfil any guarantee given by them under the said Act or under section 45 of the Gas Act 1948; and

(4) the payment into the National Loans Fund or the Consolidated Fund of any sums falling to be so paid in pursuance of the said Act of the present Session.—[Mr. Ridley.]

SUGAR BEET

7.52 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Anthony Stodart): I beg to move,
That the Sugar Beet (Research and Education) (Increase of Contributions) Order 1972, a draft of which was laid before this House on 9th December, be approved.
The purpose of this order is to increase the maximum contribution which is payable equally by growers of beet and the British Sugar Corporation in order to finance the programme of research and education which the industry itself wants to see carried out.
Section 18(1) of the Sugar Act, 1956, lays a duty on Ministers to make an order every year approving a programme of expenditure on research and education for home-grown sugar beet. Ministers are required to consult the industry, and in practice it is the Sugar Beet Research and Education Committee, representing both sides of the industry, which draws up the annual programmes of research and education for the approval of Ministers and advises on the necessary rate of contribution. The contributions are paid into a fund operated by my Department, and annual accounts are laid before Parliament. The actual rate of contribution, as opposed to the maximum rate, is determined every year and the 1972–73 contribution will be the subject of a separate order in a few weeks' time.
We are concerned here only with the maximum rate which may be levied. The 1956 Act specified that this maximum should be 3d.—I emphasise that this refers to old pence—a ton each from the growers and the corporation for every ton of home-grown sugar beet delivered to the corporation. Under section 18(4) of the Act the maximum rate can be varied by order. In 1967 it had to be put up to 4d. a ton to meet the steadily rising costs of the programmes. The order was renewed in 1970 for a further two years ending on 31st March next. So the maximum in force at the present time is 4d. or 1·66 new pence, and this produced a total sum of £210,000 last year.
Hon. Members may well ask why the industry wants to increase the maximum by a comparatively large amount to 3p.

The sugar beet industry has an exemplary attitude to self-help. It has for many years financed its own research and education and now sees ahead a period of increased competition. The industry has always recognised the value of the activities of the Sugar Beet Research and Education Committee and it is clearly ready to invest more in research and education if this is necessary. Also, of course, the cost even of a static programme is increasing. The present amount was not enough to meet this year's programme and it had to be curtailed. The increase, although substantial, is needed if the programme is to be marginally expanded.
The problem is that we have to look ahead beyond the coming year and provide a sufficient balance to finance something like 70 per cent. of the following year's programme. The research is a continuous process, but the money does not start coming into the fund until after the harvest has begun.
The order now before the House provides for a maximum of 3p for 1972–73. The Sugar Beet Research and Education Committee has looked closely at current expenditure to see that this is fully justified. The proposed maximum is fully endorsed by the British Sugar Corporation and the National Farmers' Union, and is a sensible provision for the demands likely to be made on the industry in the changing circumstances ahead.

7.55 p.m.

Mr. Eric Deakins: The few of us on this side of the House who are attending this short debate might be a little disappointed that the Minister has not chosen to give us a little more information about what is envisaged for the future. He said that the increase in maximum contribution was quite large. In fact it is 80 per cent., which is a swingeing increase. Obviously we are talking merely about maximum contributions but I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman could say something about the level of actual contribution likely to be levied in 1972–73. The House will be aware that the actual contribution at the moment is the maximum of 1.66p. The hon. Gentleman indicated that there may be some sort of expansion in the programme, but can he say in what respects expansion is contemplated in the research programme?
The second point that arises is whether producers are getting value for their contributions and from the British Sugar Corporation. For example, we see from the 1969–70 accounts, which unfortunately are the latest available to the House—one hopes that accounts will be laid before the House shortly dealing with the following year—that total expenditure from the fund has risen by 25 per cent. That was a very large increase. When we look at the figures in more detail we find one or two causes for concern and I shall be grateful if the hon. Gentleman will tell us a little more about them.
In the year 1969–70 research expenditure compared with the previous year rose by 26 per cent., more or less in line with total expenditure; but expenditure on education rose by only 9 per cent. Therefore more money was spent on research but proportionately less was spent on getting across the results of that research to producers in the industry. Perhaps equally distributing is the fact that general expenses in 1969–70 rose by no less than 63 per cent. over the previous year. This again calls for explanation.
I should like to draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the position of the British sugar beet review. I do not know what is happening to it, but expenditure in 1969–70 was drastically down on the previous year. Are this year's accounts likely to show any significant improvement in the situation?
Perhaps I may draw attention to two particular items in the 1969–70 balance sheet. Sundry debtors have increased enormously and the amount invested in local authority loans has drastically decreased. We are at a time when bad debts in all industries, particularly in agriculture, are increasing, as anybody who has worked in the industry will be well aware. Is it safe to switch more of the funds into sundry debtors and less into local authority loans—in other words, is this money perfectly safe? One might ask whether under the 1956 Act there could not be a bigger contribution from the British Sugar Corporation, the annual accounts of which show a net profit of£1½ million. Surely there would be scope for a bigger increase. If an increase is needed in the research and education programme in respect of sugar beet,

surely the money should come from the British Sugar Corporation rather than from producers.
My final point is to ask the Minister whether he has studied the E.E.C. regulations on sugar and sugar beet. Can he assure us that there is nothing in the regulations and directives which has any bearing on the operations of the fund? The Minister knows that there are 13 regulations and three directives dealing with sugar beet and there are 111 regulations dealing with sugar, all of which will have to be adopted in the event of our entry into the E.E.C. I shall be grateful to have the Minister's comments on these points.

8.0 p.m.

Sir John Gilmour: In the past Scottish farmers have paid their contributions towards the sugar beet levy. Because a decision was taken by the last Government to close the Cupar sugar beet factory, they will no longer pay these contributions unless the factory is kept open. But research and education is a continuing affair. Therefore, the money which has been paid by Scottish sugar beet growers to the fund will have an effect in future. Although it would seem that we are not to grow sugar beet in Scotland, we have a real interest in the money which we have subscribed in the past to the fund.
When the decision was taken by the last Administration that the Cupar factory should close, many of us asked that the matter should be reviewed. What advice did the Government take from the Sugar Beet Research and Education Committee about the future prospects for the growing of sugar beet in Scotland?
I must declare a past interest. At one time I was a member of the Sugar Beet Research and Education Committee and therefore took part in its deliberations. When we had a sugar beet crop-growing prize for different areas, in my ignorance when I first joined the committee I asked "Why do we not take into account in assessing the best sugar beet crop in the country the return which we get through the factory for the tonnage of sugar beet and the sugar percentage that is achieved?" I was told, particularly by representatives of the British Sugar Corporation who served on the committee: "You do not understand


This crop is grown on a quota basis. Although farmers may have quotas of 25, 30 or 50 acres or whatever it may be, because it is a quota crop they all grow at least 10 per cent., if not 20 per cent., more." I see my hon. Friends on this side of the House nodding agreement. I have spoken to several farmers in different parts of the country and they all agree that the yield which is returned to the British Sugar Corporation is entirely false.
The Ministry in its blindness will not listen to what I think is a common sense argument. If officials from the Ministry were prepared to go to the people in the British Sugar Corporation they would confirm without hesitation that, because it is a quota crop, farmers may put in 25 acres in the front field but that they grow 5 or 10 acres behind. I discovered when I served on the committee that one could not possibly do this on the returns, because everyone cheated.
Another point which comes out concerning Scotland is that the sugar beet crop, because there is more daylight in Scotland, grows in a different way from the sugar beet crop in the South. It is difficult, for instance, to grow a good crop of maize north of Hull because there is too much daylight and maize is a tropical crop. Therefore, in the Northern Hemisphere we tend to get a bigger percentage of top growth with the type of sugar beet which we grow. This is useful in Scotland because we get good animal feeding-stuffs out of the tops. Therefore, in assessing the value of a sugar beet crop, we need to take into account not only the worth which goes into the factory but the by-product. This has never been done.
What advice did my hon. Friend receive about the prospects when the present Government made their review of the last Government's decision to close the Cupar factory? We had on the Sugar Beet Research and Education Committee a learned gentleman from the College of Agriculture in Edinburgh who was breeding sugar beet. The pundits, mainly from the South, said "We believe that it is unnecessary to spend money on breeding sugar beet which is good for Scottish conditions."
This is a matter for which the British Sugar Corporation has real responsibility,

because the only source from which to buy seed to grow sugar beet is the corporation. It cannot be brought from anywhere else. Plant breeders breed sugar beet, but they tend to breed it for the places where the maximum amount of sugar beet is grown, which are in East Anglia and the South. Growers in Scotland have paid good money over many years, but have they received the benefit of the advice which is necessary to grow a good crop of sugar beet in the Northern Hemisphere beyond a certain latitude?
I know from experience that the Sugar Beet Research and Education Committee paid for officials of the British Sugar Corporation to travel to Russia, elsewhere in Europe and various other parts of the world to study sugar-beet growing. I do not believe that they have made sufficient use of the information which was available to them.
What worries me is that as we are joining the European Economic Community, if we decide to grow sugar beet only in the areas where we get the maximum tonnage per acre it is possible that we will arrive at the situation that the Commission in Brussels will say, "A bigger tonnage of sugar beet can be grown in France than in East Anglia, except perhaps for the Fen districts" and that we should not have an increased acreage of sugar beet in the United Kingdom. This is not the kind of thing which our Administration would put up with, but there is no doubt that if we say that the only place to grow sugar beet is where we get the maximum tonnage, we may find that we shall not grow it at all in Great Britain and the whole of the sugar-beet growing will be removed to Europe.
This is easy to say so long as the pundits stick to an idea on the yield, but what we want to arrive at with all crops—it is the same with almost everything in agriculture—is the cost per acre of producing the crops. Not long ago I went to the Smithfield Show and saw yields of beef growing to so many pounds per day, but nobody said how much it had cost to put that poundage of meat on the animal.
What matters in agriculture are the economics. I believe that the economics of growing sugar beet in Scotland, while possibly not as good as the best country in the Fen district, are at least as good


as for the districts which will have the increased sugar-beet growing which will come about after we go into the E.E.C. I feel, therefore, that my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and in the Scottish Office have not paid proper attention to the advice they could have got from the Sugar Beet Research and Education Committee on the prospects for growing beet economically in Scotland in the future.
This is particularly underlined by the fact that East Scotland, where we grow sugar beet, is potato-growing country. Therefore, we tend to grow our beet on the same row widths as for potatoes. The economics of changing our row widths go against us, so we tend to grow sugar beet on a wide row width. I have had many conversations with the British Sugar Corporation over the years. I know that the corporation is keen that we should minimise row widths. Apparently we will get a better tonnage per acre if we cut down the row widths and, therefore, produce more roots per acre and a more economical crop.
What one has to arrive at is the most economical way for the grower to produce his sugar. The Research and Education Committee has not been asked by the Government to give the advice which it could have given, nor has it been asked to show how the advance of such things as pelleted seed and cutting the cost of seed should reduce the cost of growing beet in Scotland. As a result of a decision taken—I believe wrongly—to cut down on growing beet in Scotland, and with all the money that the Scottish sugar beet growers have subscribed to the fund over the past years, the least that my hon. Friends could have done would have been to say to the Committee, "What do you believe are the possibilities of development in the future?" They did not go anywhere near to doing that. For that reason they should be very severely censured.

8.12 p.m.

Mr. Harry Ewing: I am delighted at the opportunity of speaking immediately after the hon. Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Gilmour). He and I have been debating the question of sugar beet for a very long time. I accept that it was the previous

Government who decided to close the sugar beet factory at Cupar and run down sugar beet growing in Scotland. But I understand that one of the reasons why the hon. Member for Fife, East emerged the victor from the skirmish that he and I had in June, 1970, from which I emerged as loser and moved on to pastures new, was that the Conservative Party held out hope to the beet industry in Scotland that it would reverse the Labour Party's decision.
I am delighted that the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Education, Scottish Office is present in the Chamber. I well remember his coming to Cupar and saying that the closing and the running down of the sugar beet industry in Scotland was criminal. There was hope, therefore, that if a new Government were elected the industry would be saved.
However, I am interested to note that the order applies to the whole of Great Britain. This baffles me. I wonder what will be the position of the Scottish sugar beet growing industry once the factory at Cupar is closed. I wonder how the Government can possibly increase the levy on farmers, when what is needed is an incentive to grow more. Given this incentive, as has been proved in the past, Scottish farmers will undoubtedly respond.
Many things were said by the hon. Member for Fife, East with which I agree. I should be interested to know what advice the research and education committee gave to Scottish farmers or the British Sugar Corporation when, or if, it approached them on the question of beet growing in Scotland.
This issue is far too important to be discussed in the calm atmosphere of the House and pushed aside as if there was no interest in it. The hon. Member for Fife, East conveyed some of the Scottish farmers' concern about the beet industry. We in Scotland are very concerned about the industry's future and about growing and milling the sugar beet. I should be failing in my duty if I did not say that it is not only the sugar beet industry that is seriously concerned but also the ancillary industries which have been built up as a result of having the sugar beet factory at Cupar, such as transport and various other industries.
I am grateful for the opportunity to focus the attention of Parliament and the country on this grave question which


affects us all. I do not pretend to have brought to the debate the expertise and knowledge of the hon. Member for Fife, East. I how to his superior knowledge of this industry. But I can convey to the House the concern which was conveyed to me when I campaigned in the constituency that the hon. Gentleman and I contested last June. I convey that concern to the House now. I ask that the Minister answers the pertinent points that have been raised as to the future for the sugar beet industry in Scotland, and as to what advice was given to the British Sugar Corporation and the National Farmers Union. Perhaps the Minister could go outside the limits of order, if you would allow that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and say specifically why the farmers in Scotland have been refused permission to form the co-operative which was suggested to save the industry and the factory.

8.16 p.m.

Mr. Norman Buchan: I had half hoped that on my return to the agricultural Front Bench I might have had the red carpet laid out for me by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, instead of which from half-past ten this morning he has been abusing me. He said this morning that I was an agricultural anarchist. Since I was not given an opportunity of replying this morning, I can now reply that I much prefer to be an agricultural anarchist than to be a Brussels bureaucrat, which the Government are rapidly becoming.
I was disappointed that in introducing the order the Parliamentary Secretary restricted himself very much to the narrow technicalities of costings. It has been customary on these orders to deploy a little some of the problems facing the industry to which research and education would have particular relevance. But the point on which the hon. Gentleman relied was of immense interest. It was that the money—"levy" is a familiar term—will be virtually doubled; it is to go up by 80 per cent. He said that this was due to the fact that the Government would need to put additional research and education projects into the industry because of increased competition. This, therefore, is the first fruit of the publication yesterday of the European Communities Bill. The first thing that hap

pens is that the levy upon some of our home producers is to be doubled. I am being absolutely accurate in saying this. This is a grave indication of the kind of costs that Britain will face if we go ahead with the efforts produced in that inadequate European Communities Bill to take us into Europe.
My second point is that I should have thought that the Minister would have taken this opportunity to indicate something of the relationship between the Research and Education Committee, with this 80 per cent. increase, a virtually doubled expenditure, and the prospects facing us within the Common Market. If he had given indications of a booming economy, with the sugar industry in successful competition, he might have been able to defend the increase. I am not opposing the increase. I am in favour of research and education within agriculture. Together with Dean Swift, I prefer to see two blades of grass growing where one grew before. Unfortunately it had to be done under the particular economic squeeze. I am not opposing the order but these points must be made in expressing disappointment that the Minister did not give an indication of his expectations for the industry.
I hope that the very pertinent questions of my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, West (Mr. Deakins) on the analysis of expenditure, and the level of expenditure we might expect—at present we are running at maximum—and the very interesting point he made about value for money, especially on the analysis between the expenditure on research as opposed to expenditure on education, getting into the field and the work of the research committee, will be answered.
My next point was raised both by my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Ewing) and the hon. Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Gilmour). It is not an unfamiliar situation for me to find myself facing the hon. Gentleman on this issue. But it is relevant to the order because, as my hon. Friend pointed out, the order applies to Great Britain. Equally important, as the hon. Gentleman pointed out, money which has been put into research and education by way of past payments by sugar-beet growers in Scotland continues to produce results for other growers in the


future over the country as a whole. Therefore, we have an interest and it is necessary to comment on the points raised by the hon. Member for Fife, East.
The hon. Gentleman is a very loyal member of his party. I think none the less of him for that. He referred to the responsibility of my own Government for the present situation. However, I am sure he will remember my own efforts to keep the factory going. I worked first to get the three-year extension, which was five years from the time that I first became involved. I well remember how devastating it was, trying to get the crop doubled to about 16,000 acres, to find new costings produced. Unfortunately, I no longer have access to the relevant papers and I have to rely on my memory. The capital cost brought forward was of the order of £1·7 million and it was calculated that 30,000 acres would be required to maintain the factory.

Sir J. Gilmour: We need to be clear about what we are discussing. I know from the answers to Questions that I have put to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland that the figure of £1·7 million, now increased to £2·2 million, was for the factory to continue on a 40-year basis. What concerns everyone in Scotland now is that, because of the changed situation of the Common Market, the factory might possibly continue until we know what is to happen when we go into Europe. However, the figures are irrelevant to the present argument. We know that the Cupar factory has been processing sugar beet from the South this year because of plant failure in the South. We are asking for an infinitesimal sum compared with £1·7 million or £2·2 million.

Mr. Buchan: I was coming into the present position. However, questions were raised about the situation as it was then. But the hon. Gentleman is quite correct. I shall come to that point in a moment.
The present position arises in a changed situation with the question of the Common Market. Then it was whether we could keep that factory going in case something unfortunate happened and we were taken into the Common Market. Would there be an opportunity for sugar

beet production to keep going? The position is now different in two ways. The first is the point raised by the hon. Member for Fife, East. It is the position of maintaining the factory and not of recapitalising it. It is not a matter of an expenditure of £2 million-plus in order to be able to say that we can project 40 years ahead. It is to see what kind of continuation could take place and what kind of research should take place to see whether it is a proposition for the future.

Sir J. Gilmour: Would not the hon. Gentleman also agree that when his Administration dealt with the matter and when, in 1970, the present Administration dealt with it, the world price of sugar was quite different and we did not know whether we were going into the Common Market? The situation which the hon. Gentleman dealt with when he was at the Scottish Office has been completely reversed.

Mr. Buchan: I am delighted to have the hon. Gentleman make my speech for me. Probably he will do it better than I could. But I agree with him. We face a new situation. There must be a response on this. It is not too late. We want it above all because of the other point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs.
One of our reasons for anger about this matter was that expectation was built up by leading spokesmen of the party opposite. They said that, given a successful result at the General Election, the factory could continue. I am sure that the hon. Member for Fife, East did not say that but I know how strongly he hoped that the statements being made at the time by the present Scottish Whip about how criminal it was of us to close the factory—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu): Order. The order is about research and contributions for research. I have allowed the discussion to go rather wide of the point. I hope that in due course we shall come back to the order.

Mr. Buchan: I take the point, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Ewing: My hon. Friend obviously did not see the election address of the hon. Member for Fife, East. He is not in a position to see whether the hon. Gentleman promised anything.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Does that intervention concern contributions for research?

Mr. Buchan: We may have strayed a little. But it is relevant, because the problem at the time was whether research would be able to increase the yield per acre. I agree that I did not see the election address of the hon. Member for Fife. East. However, I take my hon. Friend's hint about what it may have included. Incidentally, I wonder whether there can be any significance in the fact that I was accused at the time of the last election of being a criminal and, as I have said, this morning I was called an anarchist.
The final point is the relationship between the Research and Education Committee and the various instruments of the Common Market regulations which, for the sake of accuracy, I have before me. They cover 1,500 matters affecting agriculture. I have turned up those on sugar. It occurs to me to ask whether the Government have related the requirements of the order with the bureaucracy which is to be imposed upon us. It is no use involving us in lengthy speeches about the value of a sugar beet order when, at the same time, the Government publish a Bill which intends to put the control of the sugar industry so much into the hands of bureaucrats in Brussels.
This is related to the charges on levies. Clause 7 of the Bill dealing with the Common Market says:
In relation to amounts charged for the use of the Sugar Board by a directly applicable Community provision on goods imported in to the United Kingdom, and to refunds of any such amounts, section 6 (5) above, shall have effect as it has effect in the case of other agricultural levies of the European Community, except that the Commissioners of Customs and Excise shall account to the Sugar Board, in such manner as the Treasury may direct, for all money collected for the benefit of the Board by virtue of that subsection and, pending payment to the Board, shall deal with all such money in such manner as the Treasury may direct.
Willy-nilly, the problem of the Sugar Board is written into the Bill. We shall have to fight hard to keep the independence even of some of our research institutions in so far as they are there to protect British interests. The Bill establishes a Sugar Board. It says that there shall be a board in charge of the Government Department. I am not sure

whether that means that the Government Department will control the board or vice versa I am clear that the British people will have little say.

Mr. John E. B. Hill: Is the hon. Gentleman talking about a board whose duties are confined to research or education, or something wider? I am not clear how this relates to research and education.

Mr. Buchan: I am showing the connection between this order and the establishment of a board whose powers will be dealt with under the notorious Clause 2 of the European Communities Bill. Independence of view will be largely removed from the democratic control of this House and put into the hands of the Brussels bureaucracy.
There is, too, the competitor aspect. There is the transport subvention given to keep a factory going for the sake of employment. We have 150,000 unemployed in Scotland. To what extent will this cut across the rules of the Common Market designed to prevent unfair competition? The real point that this raises is that the legislation being imposed upon us impinges on almost every part of our national life which is supposed to centre upon this House. Even on this minor aspect of a sugar beet levy for research we can see the problems we are running into.

8.33 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Stodart: By leave of the House, I would like to reply to the points that have been raised. It is clear that for some reason best known to himself the hon. Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan) liked my description of him in Committee this morning as an agricultural anarchist because he was anxious, as it might not be reported in the national Press, that he should get it on the record in the House. Obviously he takes it as a compliment.
This is a rather narrow order, and that is why I would not risk a disputation with yourself, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in entering into a discussion on the Common Market. If you are agreeable I will endeavour to answer points raised.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I hope the hon. Gentleman will do it shortly.

Mr. Stodart: The hon. Member for Walthamstow, West (Mr. Deakins) asked several pertinent questions, the first of which was: why has it been necessary to make so large an increase? I thought I had already explained this. During the past two years the rate of contribution has been insufficient even to meet the immediate cost of the programme, 70 per cent. of which is attributable to salaries of research and other workers. For example, in 1970–71 income was £210,000 compared with costs of £241,000. The programme this year had to be cut for lack of funds.
I have explained the need to carry forward a reserve, and the combined effect of these factors is that the industry feels the need to provide for a substantial increase which could, with an average crop this year, bring in an extra £150,000. The hon. Member asked me what the likely level of actual contribution would be. This has still to be considered by the Sugar Beet Research and Education Committee at its meeting next month. I would be optimistic and think that in the light of the exceptional crop this year it may be found possible to pitch the levy below the maximum.
Thirdly, he asked me about the basis of the 50/50 split of contributions. This is laid down in the Sugar Act. The equal contributions from the producers and growers are of long standing, and as far as I am aware there has never been any problem. I do not think it would be easy to divide the benefits of the research programme precisely. It is essentially a co-operative effort between producer and processor. It works well and is of mutual benefit.
The hon. Member asked me what the likely expansion in the research programme in 1972–73 would be. It may well come to more than £300,000 compared with the £240,000, with some extra work in particular on plant breeding and on husbandry experiments.
Then the hon. Member asked me whether I could say that the producers were getting value for money. I can only say to him that the industry is confident that they are getting value for money, and that is why, as I said to him, they are fully behind the present proposals. They are, of course, fully represented on the Research and Education Committee.
Then the hon. Member asked me, and, of course, needless to say very properly and appropriately, as did the hon. Member for Renfrew, West, what would be the effect of this order if we were to join the Community. There is nothing whatever in the Community's regulations on sugar or sugar beet which would prevent arrangements of this kind: absolutely nothing. Indeed, the existing member States mostly operate research arrangements of a similar nature, and I would have thought them strictly in line with the improvement of efficiency in sugar beet growing.
The hon. Member also asked me one or two questions about the accounts. He pointed out that there was more research and less education compared with the previous year; but he should observe that in 1970–71 education was up by £10,000 and research by £9,000, and that, therefore, the rise in the one was bigger proportionately. Secondly, he pointed out that administrative expenses were up. This is closely linked with increasing salaries, still a very small proportion of total expenditure. Then he pointed out the decrease in local authority loans. There is, in fact, less money in the fund and less to invest, and that is the reason for that.

Mr. Deakins: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the 1970–71 accounts are not currently available in the Vote Office, although they may be laid there shortly, and that I had to work on the previous year's accounts.

Mr. Stodart: I take that point, and I think those accounts will be available.
I must now turn to the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for File, East (Sir J. Gilmour), the hon. Member for Sterling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Ewing) and the hon. Member for Renfrew, West about the position of the Cupar Sugar beet factory, although this was a subject which I thought, with the greatest respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to be wide of the question of levies. I would say first, in case you stop me, what is undoubtedly in order, that this order applies to Britain, and has the Secretary of State's name linked to it. The reason is that it would not be beyond the realms of possibility, although I would say that it was beyond the realms of likelihood, that sugar beet might be


grown in Berwickshire next year and taken to a North of England factory, in which case it would be leviable on the grower as on every other grower of sugar beet. It no one grows sugar beet in Scotland, no levy will be paid. That is the reason for the Secretary of State's interest.

Sir J. Gilmour: Would it not also indicate that the Government's mind is not entirely closed to keeping sugar beet growing in Scotland?

Mr. Stodart: I had better say only that hope springs eternal. But more than that I will not say, and I do not believe that my hon. Friend would expect me to say more. It has been said today that considerable hopes were held out that, with the change in Government, the factory would be kept open. I can only ask hon. Members to read the statement for which I was responsible, which went no further than saying that we would examine the situation, getting information which was, quite properly, not available to us: the Government of the day had the information. I said that it would be reviewed, and my right hon. Friend came to the conclusion that he did. I could not accept that anyone in the present Government held out hopes and gave grounds for expectation that the factory would be kept open. That is going a great deal further than any of us did in Opposition.

Mr. Buchan: Mr. Buchan rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not pursue further the matter of Cupar.

Mr. Buchan: I was going to, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I confess.

Mr. Stodart: That makes it slightly difficult for me. Naturally, I will do whatever you say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so I can only apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Gilmour) who has put up a tremendous fight to keep the factory open. I hope he will not think me discourteous if I bow to your Ruling and say no more than that, with the best will in the world, I can add nothing to what my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has already said.

Sir J. Gilmour: But is it not true that Scottish growers have paid to the Sugar Beet Research and Education Com

mittee? What I want to know—I think that this is in order—is what advice the committee gave the Government about sugar beet growing in Scotland. This is in order, because we have paid the levy this year and we can pay it next year if sugar beet is grown.

Mr. Stodart: With respect, this order is about a levy to be paid next year for the coming crop [Interruption.] Before the hon. Gentleman interrupts me, let me say that I am not dodging my hon. Friend's question. He asked me what advice the committee gave. I do not know, but I will find out for him. A review of this matter was carried out by my right hon. Friend. I will certainly draw to his attention this question, which no doubt the hon. Gentleman will have other opportunities of pursuing on other occasions.
The results of the research programme over the years have been good. It has put the sugar beet industry in this country under climatic conditions which might not be considered ideal, among the productive beet growers of the world. Money spent in this way, which is a good example of the industry helping itself, is also a good investment.
I am grateful to the House for listening to me twice in the one evening and for signifying that it will accept the order.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Sugar Beet (Research and Education) (Increase of Contributions) Order 1972, a draft of which was laid before this House on 9th December, be approved.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Fortescue.]

TOXIC MATERIALS (DISPOSAL)

8.45 p.m.

Mr. William Price: I am grateful for this opportunity to raise the question of the dumping of toxic materials. I promise not to take up any more of the time of the House than I would have done if the Adjournment had come on at such a time that we would


have had only half an hour for this debate.
While I shall concentrate my argument on the Walston tip, near Rugby, it is clear that what has emerged is a scandal of national proportions and one which has caused widespread dismay. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that cyanide and other toxic materials are being dumped in large quantities indiscriminately on tips all over Britain.
It is astonishing that this practice is not illegal. It may involve criminal stupidity, a total lack of concern for future generations and whatever else one may care to allege, but it is not illegal. The position has been made clear by the Minister for Local Government and Development, who has said:
I think everyone has been shocked over the past few days to find there is nothing other than the law of common nuisance or trespass to stop people tipping poisonous substances wherever they please.
In my view, this represents a crazy situation. It is apparent that anyone can dump more or less anything he likes where he likes, whatever the risk to life, and no one can stop him, and that is what has been going on.
Nothing, or virtually nothing, has been done to stop this practice. As long ago as 1964 the Government of the day set up a technical committee under Dr. Kee to look into the dumping of toxic and other materials. Presumably there was sufficient concern at that time to justify that action.
For some curious reason it took six years for the committee to report, and two years ago it called for a watchdog authority to ensure that industry dealt properly with its waste, and it wanted supervision of industrial tips. As far as I can tell, nothing has been done by the Ministry.
We all went along quite happily until three weeks ago, when the Warwickshire Conservation Society alleged in public that hundreds of drums of cyanide had been dumped on tips in the West Midlands, and particularly on the Walston site in my constituency.
The society's information came from drivers who were, clearly, appalled by what they had been doing, and they decided to spill the beans. There is some suggestion that they fell out with their

employers and were working off some old scores. Be that as it may, since they had the courage to come forward many more people have done the same in various parts of the country.
At a public meeting in Coventry recently one driver after another got up and explained what had been going on. The Coventry Evening Telegraph of 22nd January under the headline
Poison trips 'too hot to handle '—Drivers tell why they owned up".
ran a story which read:
A lorry driver stood up in a Coventry hall and announced: 'Eight weeks ago I pumped 3,000 gallons of cyanide from a tanker on to Wolston Tip".
He declined to be named—but another driver, 28-year-old Mr. David Carter, who lives in Coventry, and is among several men whose statements led to the poisons-dumping row, decided to reveal his identity.
The drivers gave their 'evidence' to a packed 'Doomwatch' meeting at the Herbert Art Gallery lecture theatre last night.
He said: Twice a week for quite a few months I brought cyanide waste from Kidderminster in an open skip to Wolston.
Then things got too hot and I went to the society and told them everything.'
I have since then received letters from all over the country from people who have been involved, they believe, in the dumping of cyanide and other potentially dangerous materials. It is not only the drivers who are coming forward. Those engaged in the running of waste disposal organisations have been equally forthcoming. In a report in the Birmingham Post of 13th January, Mr. John Deasington, of Effluent Disposal, Brownhills, said:
It is a fact that some companies do dump without treatment. Obviously this whole thing was going to come to light and burst some time.
The job can be done properly but it is very expensive and because we have to charge so much more than we would if we did not neutralise waste, we lose more orders than we get. It appals me.
In the same newspaper, Mr. Malcolm Wood, Chairman of the West Midlands Waste Disposal Association, was quoted as saying:
I believe that these toxic chemicals are being dumped. … I am very concerned that there is not tougher legislation to stamp it out.


I could go on for two hours merely producing quotations from various sources since this row broke out. I would merely say to the Minister that I do not think it can be doubted any longer that the indiscriminate dumping of toxic materials has been widespread and long term. I think the real argument and concern are about what we do in the future and what possible harm may come from what has already taken place.
In allegation after allegation, one name continually crops up—that of the Purle Brothers organisation, by far the biggest waste disposal company in the country and one very much involved at the Wolston site. The Daily Mirror has been dealing with Mr. Tony Morgan, Chairman of Purle, and has put to him a number of specific questions—in some respects, serious allegations.
The first of these was that Purle arranged with a bulldozer operator to tip illegally on a council rubbish tip. The second was that, in the words of one Purle company report, drivers were
… paid to lose and any control is impossible.
I must confess that that phrase does not make sense to me but Mr. Morgan was kind enough in the same article to explain that if this was true it meant that employees were paid to dump and that no questions would be asked.
The third allegation was that planning laws have been flouted. The fourth was that farm water has been contaminated. When challenged about these allegations, Mr. Morgan replied:
You are disclosing a hell of a lot to me … but the buck ends at this desk.…. In running Purle I feel very much like the master of a ship sailing uncharted seas.
Mr. Morgan can say that again!
Those allegations have not been satisfactorily answered, and the conclusion must be that Mr. Morgan is either a fool and incompetent or knew perfectly well all along what was taking place. My evidence is that whatever else Mr. Morgan may be he is not a fool.
This is big business. Huge fortunes have been made and are being made by some doubtful people who are running organisations of a somewhat dubious nature. There has been no concern for the future safety of our people. Why not? It is easy to answer that question. Money

is involved. Again according to the Daily Mirror, which has done a first-class job in bringing these matters to light, chemicals can be buried for as little as £3 per 1,000 gallons. Burning them apparently costs at least £6 per 1,000 gallons, and the most dangerous and difficult chemicals can cost as much as £20 per 1,000 gallons. If the Daily Mirror is right, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, it is clear that there is a very real financial incentive to dump at any available tip and hope for the best. I think that that is what has been going on.
What is the attitude of those firms in the West Midlands and other parts of the country that have used cyanide and then want it done away with? Are they paying the £20 per 1,000 gallons in the expectation of proper treatment and then getting only £3-worth of value? According to some of the drivers, that is precisely what is happening. A number of them have alleged that they were paid bonuses for keeping their mouths shut.
Again I quote from the Coventry Evening Telegraph of 15th January. It is a rather longer quotation, but it is worth detailing because it assesses in the words of one person precisely what we say has been going on all over the place. Under the headline
How I dumped drums of poison at tip
the report says
A former lorry driver with a waste disposal firm said today that he had collected drums marked cyanide from a Leamington factory and dumped them into the Wolston death tip'.…
The man who described the clumping said he drove a 32 cubic yard skip lorry until about three years ago.
'I used to call quite regularly at Automotive Products, Leamington, where they would load three to four tons of waste, in half-hundredweight drums, into the skip with a forklift truck while I waited,' he said.
'The drums were blue, marked cyanide and were full of crystals.'
He tipped the load into the Wolston pit. 'Some drums burst open as they were tipped. I did not like doing this but it was the only job I could get at the time. If you refused you were back at the Labour Exchange.
'At the tip I did not have to say what I was carrying, just signed for approval to tip one 32-cubic-yard skip.
'There were no questions asked as to what you were carrying ', he said. He claimed that the management of the disposal firm told the drivers never to discuss what they were carrying.


On another occasion he collected chemical waste from the Old Church Road factory of Courtaulds in Coventry. This was taken to what he believed was a household refuse tip, near Northampton.
The drivers' employers gave them £5 to give to the bulldozer driver. He dug a special hole, into which they emptied the waste and then he filled it up.
'If any of the stuff got on to the plants the leaves went brown and fell off within a few minutes,' he said. 'We had to wear a gas mask to handle it. The fumes would knock you out.' 
My argument is that Wolston is only the tip of an iceberg of cyanide, and with that and other toxic materials we are building up for future generations a series of tragedies which would appal even those who have made a fortune out of waste disposal. It has been estimated that 500,000 tons of solid toxic wastes are produced each year. Most firms have little or no control over the material once it leaves their premises, and many have no idea where it is going.
What concerns me most, if the allegations about Wolston are true, on a tip which has been well run and supervised, is what is going on at hundreds of tips on which anyone can go at any time of the day or night. How much fly tipping is being carried out, even at Wolston? How many loads are being incorrectly described on delivery notes? Just how much fiddling has been going on? Nobody knows.
What is clear is the urgent need for Government action. It is perhaps a pity that the rules of debate do not permit me to ask for legislation. I am satisfied that Ministers are now showing the concern which we should have seen years ago. I am, for the moment, happy to accept assurances that appropriate action will be taken. I urge the Minister to ensure that it is sooner rather than later.
The Minister and his Department have been criticised recently for lack of action over dumping, both inland and at sea. I speak as I find. The Minister may be relieved to know that he has at least one friend in the House. Since the row broke out at Wolston I have been gratified by the interest he has shown and by the prompt action of his officials. They have done much to investigate as quickly as possible the allegations that were made and to offer some reassurance to hundreds of my constituents who believe,

as I believe, that they have a large dump of cyanide at the bottom of the garden. I hope the Minister is not unduly embarrassed by those remarks.
This matter is the responsibility of each one of us. Over the years pollution has not received a fraction of the time of this House that it deserves, and we must all take our share of the blame for that. If good has come out of this argument it is that people are beginning to wake up to the dangers of pollution, local authorities are getting more and more involved and politicians are taking an interest. I believe that the Minister and his right hon. Friend will do whatever is necessary.

9.3 p.m.

Mr. Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler: I am sure the whole House will be grateful to the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. William Price) for the initiative he has shown in raising in the House this matter of supreme national importance. My concern about this matter is perhaps more recent than his. It started in June last year when I was made aware of the tipping practices at Jacob's Pit at Docking, in my constituency. The matter was brought to my attention by the Environment Protection Society. Since then I have received letters from hosts of people, including county councillors, rural district councillors, justices of the peace, the Council for the Preservation of Rural England and many other bodies which are concerned about the practice which was alleged to be taking place at that tip.
Early in October I referred this matter to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. As a result steps were taken by the Department to seek the co-operation of those who were dumping in the Docking pit to cut out the dangerous materials which it was suspected were being dumped there from time to time. Since then I have been in correspondence with my right hon. Friend again pressing him to look at the inadequancy of the existing controls and I have been extremely impressed by his prompt consideration of the problem as I have put it before him.
It has been suggested that it would be appropriate if action were to wait until after the local government reorganisation takes place, but I feel I speak for many


people in saying that that would be too far ahead. Undoubtedly there is growing evidence throughout the country that this practice is very widespread and that there is need for better control of the practice of tipping.
I emphasise to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary the urgency for a review of current practice. As a result of recent discussions I became more alarmed by practices as Jacobs Pit and I was informed formally in a letter from the Docking Rural District Council on the 14th of this month that
… the Council's senior public health inspector has recently received indisputable evidence that diluted cyanide (fortunately at the present time in small quantities) is being deposited there by discharge from tankers and not in drums as was the case with the Warwickshire tip about which the Government has shown so much concern.
Here again is concrete and irrefutable evidence of the dumping of cyanide in a tip already the subject of investigation by the river authority and by the local authority to see what is the effect of dumping in the sub-strata which exist below the tip. It is intolerable that tipping can continue while an investigation is taking place, which clearly shows that we do not know what the effect of dumping may be. There must at least be an outside chance that damage can be done to water deep under the subsoil which may affect the supply of water in the future. I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the growing and widespread concerned about this matter and press him on the urgency of the situation in the hope that he will make suggestions about how it might be more adequately dealt within the near future.

9.08 p.m.

Mr. Terry Davis: I am glad to have an opportunity to take part in this debate because my own constituency has been affected by recent allegations about dumping of possible dangerous chemicals. In my case the Minister has been aware of these allegations and investigations are now taking place. I have a number of outstanding Parliamentary Questions on this matter, and I understand from the Minister that answers will be given to those Questions very shortly. I shall this evening be raising some matters referred to in those Questions, and I hope the Minister may anticipate his answers.
I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr. William Price), wish to congratulate the Minister on his action since these allegations became public and since I contacted him about them last week. Nevertheless, I must express some concern about what happened before that time.
I wish to give the two illustrations in my constituency which concern me most and of which the Department was already aware. I refer to tipping at Barnt Green and the tip at Shirley Quarry. In the case of Barnt Green, allegations were made to a representative of the Department of the Environment at a meeting on 21st December. The meeting was arranged between representatives of the Conservation Society in Warwickshire and the Department of the Environment to discuss allegations about the Wolston tip which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby. I understand that at the meeting allegations were also made about other places, including Barnt Green, Bromsgrove.
I am concerned that this information was not communicated to the Bromsgrove Urban District Council and that nothing was passed by the Department of the Environment to the local council until the Press revealed these allegations three weeks later. It seems that if the Press had not revealed these allegations we might not yet know about them, and my constituents would not know that there is a threat—I put it no higher—of dangerous chemicals percolating from the Barnt Green tip. If those chemicals percolate through the sandstone from that quarry, there is a risk that the Bromsgrove water supply could be affected. I realise that the waterworks board would take immediate action and that people would not be poisoned. Nevertheless, hon. Members will appreciate the concern felt by the public. I emphasise that the Department of the Environment knew about this for three weeks and that the information was not given to the local council until the Press had printed leaks.
My second example is the Shirley quarry. In this instance, a local resident wrote to the Secretary of State for the Environment on 17th April, 1971. It was a long letter which listed a number of complaints about activities at the Shirley quarry. In one paragraph the local resident alleged that drums of cyanide had been dumped at the quarry.
The letter was acknowledged by the Department, but nothing more happened. There was subsequent correspondence, in the course of which my constituent drew the attention of the Department to the fact that a number of his allegations and complaints had not been dealt with. However, the Department concentrated on only one of his complaints, which was about an alleged unauthorised use of the quarry for a transport business. That complaint is the subject of a planning appeal. It was the only letter to which the Department referred in its correspondence. Eventually, my constituent gave up what he regarded as the hopeless battle of trying to bring to the attention of the Department not merely the complaint about the drums of cyanide but many other matters.
When the publicity about the Wolston and Barnt Green tips occurred, my constituent came to see me and showed me this correspondence. Again, I pay tribute to the action which the Minister took when I showed him that correspondence 10 days ago. But nearly 11 months have elapsed since that information came into the possession of the Department.
I accept that my constituent could, and possibly should, have written to the district council about these allegations. He had had correspondence with the district council about a number of his complaints, but he had not mentioned the complaint about the cyanide. The Department did not communicate it to the local council. I believe that it should have done, and I hope that the Minister will explain why it did not.
I should like to know whether the Department welcomes this kind of information. I know from correspondence with the Minister that he suggests that his Department should not act as a post office for complaints from members of the public. Nevertheless, people will write to the Government about such matters in the way that they write to Members of Parliament about complaints which are nothing to do with the House of Commons. I hope that the Minister will tell us that in future the Department of the Environment will pass on such information to local district councils whenever and however it comes into its possession.
From the information which has come to me this week, it would seem that my

constituent's allegation about drums of cyanide being tipped on that quarry was true. Indeed, I understand from the people who have been operating the tip in recent months that they removed drums of cyanide when they took over the tip.
This raises another worrying point. We have a situation where not only on tips in my constituency but on tips all over the country people may have dumped things in the past which we would criticise and condemn and not expect them to dump in future now that we know so much more about the tipping of toxic waste. I am concerned about what may have happened in the past. But we shall never establish the truth. We shall never know what has been tipped at these quarries and on these dumps.
We are very concerned about the past as well as the future. It may well be that toxic wastes have been nut into quarries in my constituency, in Worcestershire, in the West Midlands and in the country as a whole, and that these toxic wastes will percolate through the sandstone and affect water supplies. They could have all sorts of harmful effects on the environment. What will the Government recommend to local authorities about this possible threat?
I agree with the remarks of the hon. Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler) when he said that we cannot wait for the reform of local government before we take action. I hope that the Minister will say that at least he will recommend that councils do something now and not wait until 1974 for the local government reorganisation.

9.15 p.m.

Mr. John Farr: I rise briefly to support the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. William Price) and to congratulate him on his initiative in securing a debate on this very topical and important problem.
I was especially interested in what the hon. Member said because his constituency has the good fortune to be adjacent to mine in Leicestershire. In the northeastern part of his constituency he has another tip, which is controlled by the Rugby council, which for some years has been the subject of correspondence between myself and the clerk of Rugby


council. For his endeavour on my behalf to secure the abatement of the nuisance caused to my constituents by dumping and uncontrolled tipping on this tip, I pay tribute to the effectiveness of the clerk. He has been very diligent in his correspondence with me and has tried his utmost to secure the alleviation of this nuisance.
Only last week the clerk wrote a lengthy letter to me and gave a final conclusion which I can summarise. He concluded that there was no legislation on the Statute Book which enabled him to control tipping on the tip. He has brought into use a number of byelaws. He even tried to introduce another selection of byelaws by means of a Private Bill, some of which were eliminated by the Department of the Environment because it was thought that they went too far in the controlling of tipping. The clerk was kind enough to send me a sample of the Bill he had sent to the Department and he showed me the returned Bill, which had had two Clauses expunged. Those Clauses would have given some effective control on tipping in the Rugby district.
I wrote to my right hon. Friend about this matter last week—I did not expect a reply yet—and asked him to consider whether we could not put on the Statute Book, and quickly an effective Act to control dumping of this sort. No doubt the answer that my hon. Friend will give tonight will be that with the Common Market legislation approaching, and so on, there simply will not be time for a Bill of this type, however much we all want it. But I believe it is possible, given Government support, that an hon. Member such as the hon. Member for Rugby could, with all-party support, introduce a two-Clause Bill which would at least give local authorities some assistance in controlling this immense—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am willing to be very tolerant, but the hon. Member for Flarborough (Mr. Farr) must not go too far in referring to legislation.

Mr. Farr: I apologise, Mr. Speaker.
My final point is that chemical waste is generated in all industrial countries, but it is the responsibility of good government to see that effective methods are devised for its disposal.

9.20 p.m.

Mr. Neil Carmichael: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr. William Price) for initiating this debate and providing hon. Members with an opportunity to raise a number of points.
I am not sure whether the Under-Secretary is concerned with the subject that I propose to raise although it is concerned with pollution. Hon. Members who have contributed to the debate so far have spoken from close experience of dumping in pits. I am concerned with a slightly wider subject. I do not expect immediate answers to my questions from the hon. Gentleman. I speak only because the subject of pollution has suddenly become a matter about which the country is deeply conscious. When legislation comes it will have to be far-reaching. Ultimately it will mean a great deal of control in our lives and changes in methods of manufacture, possibly with the complete prohibition of the manufacture of certain commodities.
My interest in disposal arises from dumping not on land but in the sea and in close proximity to our shores. I was in Strasbourg about a year ago attending a special discussion on seabed exploration and pollution. Delegates were greatly impressed by a paper on dumping in the sea which was presented by Professor Piccard. I was staggered by the way that someone of his eminence discussing the sea was able to put over to his audience how diluted quantities of certain modern chemicals could produce extremely toxic substances. Those who were present came quickly to realise how small the sea is in volume, and Professor Piccard terrified many by what he said.
In Glasgow we have two universities. As a result I meet many scientific people. Recently a marine biologist told me about the effect of dumping materials in the Irish Sea. I do not know the firms which are doing it but it is dumping on a fairly large scale. Ships, some of them owned by disposal companies and others on charter, are going out from Liverpool and dumping into holes in the Continental Shelf off the Coast of Lancashire and Cumberland. They find a hole in the Continental Shelf and they dump


almost anything in it. No study has been made of the effect. Obviously, I do not blame the Minister. I am concerned with the irresponsibility of it and that there is no control on this kind of dumping.
Marine biologists tell me that fishermen have noticed a marked increase in the number of fish that they have to put back into the sea in the Solway and off the Lancashire coast. Over the centuries, in cycles of three, four and six years, there have been outbreaks of certain fish diseases and, as a result, catches have been reduced. But fishermen now claim that they find themselves throwing back more and more fish, and it happens with different species of fish in the same year in a way that did not occur before.
I hope that, at his leisure, the Minister will look into the dangers of dumping in the sea. I gather that it is very big business. It may not be as immediately dangerous as the dumping of cyanide to which my hon. Friend has referred but obviously it is a matter which ultimately will affect the health of people and, as I say, we do not really know what is happening. I understand that insufficient charts are available to enable people to trace what is happening. Everyone is becoming more aware that we are burning up our resources and disposing of the remains in a way that we do not really understand.

9.25 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Eldon Griffiths): The fact that an Adjournment debate taking place on a Thursday evening has attracted five hon. Members is an eloquent demonstration of the rising concern in the House and in the country for problems of pollution. I join with others in congratulating the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. William Price) for rightly drawing our attention to the subject of the disposal of toxic waste.
Recent events, in his constituency and elsewhere, involving allegations that certain kinds of waste have been dumped indiscriminately on tips, into drains or ditches and the reactions to this dumping have only served to underline the need for a new appreciation of—and further action to deal with—the problems of

waste disposal. At the outset, I want to emphasise that, far from resenting public clamour, the Government welcome the vigilance of the public and the Press in drawing attention to cases where unlawful and possibly dangerous dumping may be taking place. My Department regards public concern for the protection of the environment as an asset and an ally in its work to combat pollution. Events have brought home to the public that they have a part to play, not only in criticising those who mishandle dangerous wastes or do not react sufficiently rapidly, but also in condemning the litter bug, the dumper of bulky rubbish and anyone else for that matter who creates, condones or connives at dirtying the air, fouling the water or despoiling the land.
In harnessing the public's capacity for vigilance, I believe it is necessary to establish that the results of that vigilance should be made known in the first instance to the appropriate local and river authorities. Local government is best equipped to take immediate steps to bring together all the agencies which may have a part to play in assessing the risk and responding to it. The central government is totally concerned with the well-being of all the people, but Whitehall Departments do not have the resources to become involved in investigating public health risks everywhere and anywhere and should do so only if special expertise is required to supplement local authority resources.
Let me here answer a point raised by the hon. Member and an hon. Friend; namely, the suggestion that at present there are no powers to control the dumping of toxic wastes. I accept at once that the available powers are inadequate, and I shall come to that again towards the end of my speech, but I should remind the House first of all that there are the planning powers which control to some extent at least the location of tips, and, of course, conditions can be placed upon them when there is planning consent. There is the Public Health Act, 1936, which allows local authorities to serve abatement notices wherever a nuisance is found to occur. There is also the Water Act, 1945, which makes it an offence to pollute, or even to take action which would be likely to pollute, springs, wells adits or boreholes. There are in addition


the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Acts and the Water Resources Acts which in addition bring some powers to bear on the problem. But I repeat that the whole complex of powers is inadequate, and I accept what has been said tonight, that there is a need to take further action to deal with the problem.
Let me deal briefly with some of the various points that have been made by hon. Gentlemen in the debate and then come to the main speech of the hon. Member for Rugby later.
I am happy to be able to give the hon. Member for Glasgow, Woodside (Mr. Carmichael) some immediate hope. Shortly there will be signed a treaty of all the riparian nations interested in the North-East Atlantic and the Atlantic Shelf surrounding this island to control the dumping of toxic materials into the sea. This North-East Atlantic Convention, in which the British Government have taken a leading part, will place limits on the dumping of a whole range of materials, proscribing completely the more dangerous of them, requiring a specific certificate from the home Government in respect of those materials which are not positively poisonous but, nevertheless, must be carefully controlled, and requiring a general consent to be given by the home Government in respect of all other noxious matter. I am glad to be able to tell the hon. Gentleman that this convention, which we hope to sign before very long—of course, the House will eventually have to ratify it—will make an improvement in controlling tipping and dumping of toxic matter in the sea surrounding these islands.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) spoke of his correspondence with my Department and the ideas of the clerk to his authoirity about particular byelaws. I hope he will allow me tonight simply to say that I have seen his letter and that we are giving the most careful consideration to it. I hope I shall be able to meet some of his general points towards the end of my speech.
My hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn (Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler) spoke, quite rightly, of Jacob's Pit at Docking in Norfolk. I am advised that this site which has given me as well as him some concern, is a disused gravel pit for which

planning permissiaon was granted as long ago as 1954 "for the deposit of refuse." It appears to be getting a good deal more than simple refuse. I am advised that the rural district council estimated in the summer that some 30,000 gallons of liquid waste is put on the tip every week. When the council met officials of my Department in November, this figure had risen to no less than 300,000 gallons per week. The council, to its credit, rejected in September last year an application by the owners for an expansion of the tip, and the council has also begun taking copies of the delivery notes brought by drivers delivering waste to the tip to ascertain as far as possible the nature of the substances being dumped there.
Meanwhile, I can tell my hon. Friend that the Great Ouse River Authority is carrying out test bores to a depth of 100 feet. Tests so far have shown a concentration of polluting matter down to 60 feet, but the authority tells me that this is to be expected, and that nothing so far has been found to cause alarm. Nevertheless, my Department is keeping in close touch with the local authority and the river authorities, and I am confident that those bodies, too, are keeping the situation, as indeed they should, under close review. I hope that it may be possible to obtain from the companies whose wastes are disposed of at the tip precise information on the nature of the substances involved. That is the key to the problem.
The hon. Member for Rugby, who is one of the most diligent of constituency Members, has done his constituents a service in bringing this matter before the House. I thank him for his kind and deserved remarks about my Department. I did not agree with his choice of language in saying that the Wolston tip is "the tip of an iceberg of cyanide." I am not sure that it will be proved in the end that the volumes of cyanide to be found at that spot are quite so large as he suggests, but this is for the future.

Mr. William Price: I am talking of an iceberg which covers the whole of the West Midlands, not just on that tip.

Mr. Griffiths: I surmised that the hon. Gentleman would want to correct that point and I thought it wise to give him an opportunity to do so. But I give this reassurance to his constituents and those


of the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Mr. Terry Davis), where further allegations had been made.
The hon. Member for Rugby attended a meeting at the Rugby district council offices on 14th January. He will know that a team of senior officials from my Department, consisting of administrators, a chemist, an engineer and a geologist, inspected the site at Wolston and discussed the problems with the local authorities and the river authorities. The hon. Gentleman himself joined constructively in the discussion.
Some evidence was obtained of the approximate location on the tip of drums said to contain cyanide. Evidence of the precise dates when the dumping took place was not available, but it was suggested that the drums were about 30 feet deep. The tip operators thought that substantial excavation would have been necessary to place anything 30 feet below the present level as recently as 18 months ago, but, despite the lack of precise information, it was decided that the frequency of checks by the Severn River Authority on the purity of surface water and the water in wells in the area should be intensified. More samples have been taken in the vicinity of those areas of the tip where drums were alleged to have been dumped. A full report of the results of these tests will be made as soon as possible.
I will now venture into the fields of geology. The original quarry was excavated in superficial glacial sands and gravels which rest on a solid keuper marl formation, which is between 300 and 400 feet thick, and this underlying marl, which provides a floor under the quarry beneath the entire Wolston area, is regarded as impermeable. There is, therefore, no apparent danger of pollutant seeping into the underlying formations at depth. In any case, there are no public supply pumping stations within three miles of the site, so there is some assurance in this geological formation.
Nevertheless, the overlying glacial sands and gravels are permeable and quarrying and the subsequent infilling of tipped materials is likely to have modified the natural pattern of the sub-surface drainage, so that movement of any toxic matter is a matter of concern. As soon as the report of the Hydrogeological

Department of the Institute of Geological Sciences is available, I am told that the Severn River Authority will take such decisions as may be needed on further arrangements for monitoring. I am again seeking to give the hon. Gentleman's constituents an assurance that the authorities which are charged statutorily with looking after this problem are doing their duty and are on top of the problem.
The nature of the cyanide waste in drums alleged to have been deposited at Wolston is, frankly, not known. Until we find the drums we will not know what is in them. Indeed, we shall not know for certain if they are there unless we find them.
However, to venture from geology into chemistry—I make no apology for doing this; the House must get used to the fact that pollution is a technical subject requiring technical exposition—I will comment on cyanide as a problem.
Cyanide is, of course, a highly emotive word and the public are rightly worried about it. I am advised that cyanide is as much a necessity to our modern way of life as are, say, foam rubber and nylon. The real problem is not of outlawing cyanide—it is far too useful for that—but of making sure that when it comes to be disposed of, it is either sufficiently diluted or, to put it in layman's language, is sufficiently de-natured as not to cause a danger to public health when it is eventually got rid of.
I am advised that the cyanide wastes at Wolston, if they are finally discovered to be in the tip, are most probably what is known as complex cyanide. This is not as toxic as ordinary cyanide. Moreover, it is known that in the bacteriological purification processes of sewage purification, oxidation of cyanide occurs and this reduces or even eliminates the toxicity in the cyanide. It is to be expected that a similar process may occur on industrial tips. I am also advised that at most industrial tips cyanides are complexed; that is, they are chemically made into relatively less toxic substances and are thereafter precipitated as insoluble compounds.
All this means that a refuse tip curiously has some capacity itself for detoxifying and, therefore, treating the cyanide wastes that are placed on it. In controlled quantities and under controlled conditions, disposal to land need


not be regarded as an unsuitable method of getting rid of waste.
I believe, however, that there is a need for more research into the behaviour of certain wastes when they are disposed of to land and that a great deal more needs to be known about the techniques of managing tips so as to use them as detoxifying entities.
I will deal briefly with the Shirley Quarry, to which reference has been made. I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not venture into chapter and verse on the correspondence between his constituents and my Department, save to say that I accept at once that Mr. Jones's letters could have been more courteously dealt with. In so far as there was any oversight on the part of my Department, I am perfectly willing to say now that we owe Mr. Jones an apology and I gladly offer it to him through his Member of Parliament.
I should at the same time point out that a letter of apology was sent to Mr. Jones as long ago as 12th July. One of the difficulties in this whole matter is that the tip in question is the subject of general planning considerations and I understand that there is to be a local public inquiry, so that I am inhibited from saying more on the subject.

Mr. Terry Davis: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that handsome apology, which I will communicate to my constituent. I understand there was a reply to the letter of 12th July, and I do not think that that was dealt with. The complaint about tipping was separate from the complaint about alleged unauthorised use of the quarry for a haulage business, which is the subject of a planning appeal. There was a series of complaints, and the tipping complaint was separate.

Mr. Griffiths: I note what the hon. Gentleman says and perhaps he will allow me now to pass on to Barnt Green, for which he also has some representational responsibility. On 22nd January four senior officials of my Department visited Bromsgrove to inspect sites in the area and have talks with the local authorities. May I say in passing that, what with these officials going to Bromsgrove and to Rugby, and what with swamping Cornwall with chemists and engineers, we at the Department find it difficult some

times to get highly technical advice here in Whitehall. This demonstrates the dangers of spreading our resources too thinly if we are asked to react to every single difficulty.
In any event, last Saturday these four senior officials visited Bromsgrove, inspected the sites and had long discussions with the local authorities. The hon. Gentleman was present. At the Barnt Green site, evidence was obtained from a driver that he had dumped two 1,500 gallon tanker loads of a material which he had been told contained cyanide. Because the layout of the tip had changed considerably since the event—probably more than a year ago—the driver had some difficulty, quite understandably, in specifying the precise location of the waste.
My Department has made a good deal of inquiry into this and our conclusions are that it was sludge from a neutralisation-cum-settling tank or from a plating bath that was disposed of to the Barnt Green tip. It was probably put into or near a standing pool of water. In the waste before dumping and in the standing pool of water there almost certainly, I am advised, were sufficient heavy metals to precipitate the cyanide as insoluble complex cyanide, which, as I have explained, is, relatively speaking, safe. I am advised that there is almost certainly no cyanide in the water of the aquifer under that tip.
Nevertheless, in view of the relationship of the site to water sources, it was decided that a trial borehole should be sunk on the tip site to enable a programme of sampling to be undertaken. I understand that the quality of the groundwater pumped from Burcot is being continuously monitored and, for the benefit of the hon. Gentleman's constituents, I should remind the House that the East Worcestershire Water Company has stated that no contamination has been detected.
I come now to Shut Mill, Romsley, about which there is also concern in the Midlands. The same team of senior officials of the Department visited the site of Shut Mill, known as Sling Common, where separate allegations have been made about the dumping of cyanide wastes. I understand that the local authority was hoping to get clearer evidence


today from the person making the allegations as to when the tipping took place, where precisely on the tip it happened and also an indication of where the waste material in the first instance came from. It is only in this way—by pinpointing the problem precisely—that any opinion can be formed as to the likely effects of the dumping.
I am advised in this case that, due to the thickness of the unsaturated zone beneath the tip site, the risk of extensive pollution to the Bunter aquifer is very slight. Samples taken yesterday by the local public health inspector revealed small traces of cyanide but he has informed my Department that the quantities are so small that there is no cause for concern. On the figure the public health inspector has given us—0·05 milli-grammes per litre—I think that we would agree with his view. The quality of the nearby streams will be kept under close observation. I should add, merely for the interest of the House, that when visiting the site officials of my Department noted a drum marked "cyanide" and recovered it but on inspection the drum, which was not easily reached, was found to have had one end removed and it contained cardboard boxes.
Perhaps I can return now to the generality of the debate and the suggestions that have been rightly made for further action. I am inhibited by the proper convention of the House that calls for legislation are not normally the subject of Adjournment debates.
To summarise, the Government take the problem of toxic waste disposal with the utmost seriousness. We are determined to prevent careless and uncontrolled tipping from endangering water supplies and hazarding public health. Already there is a network of controls and codes of practice which, if they were scrupulously observed and enforced, would provide most of the necessary safeguards. My right hon. Friend accepts, however, that the present arrangements are not good enough. There are gaps which need to be filled and more needs to be done. My Department is therefore concerting a series of measures, some of them new, some of them extensions of our previous tried practice, which together will go far towards overcoming this worrying problem.
Specifically we are acting, or intend to act, along the following main lines. First, responsibility. In the Local Government Bill we have proposed that the main responsibility for local authority refuse disposal services should be allocated to the new county councils. It is on these new authorities, with their vastly greater resources of money and technical manpower, that we intend to place additional statutory responsibilities for authorising the disposal of industrial waste. In discharging these responsibilities they will be required to have regard to the amount and nature of the waste and the suitability of the site to receive it.
This will go some way towards improving the situation but it will require the recruitment of suitable staff, not only for administration but also staff with the technical expertise to make sensible judgments about the composition of the wastes and the best and safest method of disposing of them. So the first step is to place responsibility on the new county authorities.
Second, we have already publicised in circular 26/71 detailed advice on the operation of tips receiving toxic wastes. The Confederation of British Industry, the National Association of Waste Disposal Contractors and, of course, the local authorities have been made fully aware of these codes of practice; indeed, they were associated in one way or another in their preparation. The N.A.W.D.C. and the Institution of Chemical Engineers are now working on a further code of conduct for adoption by industries producing wastes, contractors moving them and the tip operators, whether these are private or public. My Department is joining forces with them in their work. I have also asked the N.A.W.D.C. to scrutinise the tipping and checking procedures in use by its members in the light of the allegations which have been made. I have no doubt that the development of a strong national trade association can lead to better machinery whereby the trade itself can respond to criticism and, where appropriate, can take the necessary action against its own defaulting members.
Third, a national review. My hon. Friend the Member for King's Lynn advocated precisely that. As suggested by my right hon. Friend, local authorities


all over the country are being asked to re-examine all the tips in their areas. River authorities and industry have been associated with the local authorities and my Department in preparing the very detailed questionnaires which will be needed for this very detailed and comprehensive review. The review, which I hope will begin in the early spring, will provide all local authorities with the opportunity to examine tipping operations in every nook and cranny of the country. It will also enable the Institute of Geological Sciences and river authorities to make an assessment as to the suitability of the sites for waste disposal from the point of view of safeguarding water supplies.
Fourth, early warning systems. With the increasing sophistication and complexity of modern industry, more and more new products—and with them new types of wastes—are being created and they need to be safely got rid of. A comprehensive early warning system providing advance notice of the introduction of new chemicals into industry is now being considered by my Department in conjunction with the C.B.I. This is no easy matter but I am hoping to make speedy progress.
Fifth, transport. Recent incidents in Cornwall and in Ipswich have revealed the need for more effective controls and better notification procedures, covering the carriage of chemicals, including toxic wastes, whether at sea or on the land. In both these fields, we are in close touch with other Departments of Government and, as appropriate, with domestic industry and, in the case of the sea, overseas countries with a view to improving

what my right hon. Friend and I accept is an unsatisfactory position.
Finally, there is the question of statutory powers. I am inhibited from discussing legislation. Whilst all the measures to which I have referred will help in the end and before long, we shall need some additional statutory powers, perhaps interim ones, pending the comprehensive Bill which my right hon. Friend has said he intends to introduce to cover the whole range of pollution.

Mr. John E. B. Hill: I understand that there is to be a review of the procedure whereby firms dump toxic wastes on authorised tips. In his review, will my hon. Friend consider the possible danger of deflecting some tipping on to private land? Will he include in the review consideration of the possible dangers, and the procedures and sanctions for tipping builders' waste or toxic materials on private land?

Mr. Griffiths: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning that point. I assure him that the review will cover all tips, both on private land and in public places within the jurisdiction of the local authority. I see his point about the danger of deflection, and I will certainly bear it in mind in the preparation of the questionnaire which my Department is now working on.
My right hon. Friend accepts the need for further powers, and he is urgently considering ways and means of bringing proposals before the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Ten o'clock.